The Neverending War
by Minodrin
Summary: A story set in our age, the first age. In the Age before the Age of Legends. In a parallel universe to ours, where the USSR still stands, where the Dark One has awoken and the power has just been unleashed on the world, the first war of power is beginning
1. Prolouge

Disclaimer:

The phrases "The Wheel of Time" and "The Dragon Reborn" and the snake symbol are copyrighter to Robert Jordan. As this story is set two ages before the events in the books (as the original prologue is in the second age, my prologue is set in the seventh), and no characters from this story (except the Dark One) are in any way connected to the characters in the books, save trough rebirth.

Please write some reviews to give me more reasons to keep writing.

Prologue

It was the end of the age. For years there had been fought the ultimate war. Might channelers had leveled mountains, raised continents and burned planets. The space fleets had sent moons crashing down on the planets they circled. Planet by planet had fallen to the shadow, sometimes by destruction, sometimes by war, but very often by surrender or defection. Might battles had been fought here and there, but the main battleground had always been the homeworld, center of operations for both the Light and Shadow. But right now the capital city of Daarm had fallen, the last major stronghold of the light on the planet.

Xiwan Narthin stood in the great dome at the lunar facility, looking down at the planet below. The prophecy said that he would have to bleed at the cliff of death for the world to survive, but during the ten years of war with the shadow, he had never managed to draw strength to face the dark one himself.

Right then, a booming voice called out to him "Dragon, I win again. As you are looking down at your planet from safety, my chosen have already taken over it fully. The fight for your cause is lost, but you may still live. Bow to me, and live forever, or die death eternal. Dragon, I win again." The voice called out. Everyone else in the facility also seemed to have heard, and started looking at Xiwan.

Xiwan noticed the hopeful looks of the several people in the dome. His eyes moved between them and the planet above. The planet was the same as ever, but it seemed as a dark shadow, not made by nature, had been cast over it. His eyes also went to the small statue, ancient and with it's name long forgotten in the mists of time. There was an identical copy of it down at planet too, a huge sa-angreal. Both were made in an age long past, for a reason forgotten ages ago. There was a female statue too, but its smaller copy had been lost and forgotten.

Xiwan's wife put her hand on his shoulder from behind, and as he turned around, she said out "We cannot win anymore, now we must reconcile with the dark. Make peace." she said in her calm voice. She was always calm, even when the screens at the lunar facility showed the city of Daarm burning in flames, with the dead filling the streets, blocking any way for the survivors to run from the flames. Always calm.

His eyes moved between the small statue and his wife, he could not choose. It might have taken hours or minutes, he did not know, but finally his eyes settled on the statue. It had never been used during the war; it was too powerful for anyone to use, yet too weak to fight the dark one.

Xiwan shouted out "Shai'tan! I swore when we first fought, and have always sworn, that I will destroy the world before I let you have it. I am sure of it". Where had that memory come from? Did it matter? There was only one way out anymore.

As he started moving towards the statue, terrified faces came from the crowd that had gathered around in the dome. Some tried to stop him, and were fought back by Xiwan and the power. Others wept in despair, but most of them just looked, thinking that it could not be true.

It only took a few seconds to walk to the statue, yet it felt as the longest walk in his life. His last too, Xiwan though dryly. But there was no choice for him. There never was, he thought. But still, as soon as he reached the statue, he took all the might if Saidin that he could.

Those of the crowd that were male and could channel were almost blinded by the brightness. The women didn't feel anything of course, but they knew, and they were terrified. Down at the planet too, the forsaken, dreadlords and the male channelers saw the light of Saidin from the moon.

Xiwan of course knew none of this. He fought Saidin, and fought himself. He made a hole in the pattern, something he didn't know how to do, yet from somewhere came the knowledge to do so. In all his life he had learned some things that no one had known, lost talents, lost languages, and pain. It had helped him become the foremost channeler in the world. He had leaded the fight against the shadow, never losing a battle. Yet even he could not turn the tide of war alone.

All the power he got he moved into the center of the universe. There was a huge hole there. It could not be seen of course, the gravity of it was too powerful for even light to flee. And he gave it strength, all the strength that he could manage, and more. It shouldn't be possible to overchannel by using an angreal or sa-angreal, yet that was what he did. And then it snapped.

He did not pass out however. He had overchanneled, he knew that. In a myth it had been possible to heal someone who was cut out from the one power. Of course, that myth had been a myth already in the what was know now as the age of legends, the sixth age, now it with was forgotten for all, all but him. But it did not really matter anymore.

Xiwan looked up to see his wife crying on the floor. He was about to say how sorry he was, when suddenly he saw something terrible. The gravity-systems of the station seemed to be failing, or not. The entire crowd had fallen on one of the walls as the pull to that direction got stronger and stronger, as the black hole got stronger and stronger. Only he had managed to grab hold on one of the chairs on the floor. Even though he didn't give power to it anymore, it was already sucking on the one power to grow stronger on itself. It's increased gravitational pull, aided by the one-power, was felt almost instantly across the universe. In only 20 seconds or so the bolts holding the chair up could not hold the strain anymore, and before he died as the chair he was holding on too smashed into the wall he screamed out in his mind at the Dark One "Dark One, I win again". And as such, the planet below, all the planets, all the suns, the moons and everything in this and every alternate weave had been destroyed in less than a minute.

And so the last age, the seventh age ended, with everything the wheel had weaved gone, and the force forming a great prison to keep the dark one locked away forever. But the wheel still existed, and the second everything had vanished, it had already begun to weave a new age. The dark hole didn't last long, and blew up to free all the matter and energy stored in it, building blocks for the new age, the first age.


	2. The Awakening

Chapter 1

The Awakening

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come to pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even the myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In the First Age, an Age yet to come, an Age long gone, a wind rose among the mountains of Himalayas. The wind was not the beginning, there are neither beginnings or endings in the Wheel of Time, but it was _a_ beginning.

The wind flew over farms in China, easing the hard burdens of the poor Chinese commoners. The wind continued to the north and west, it flew over the great forests in Soviet Russia. The wind flew over the nation of Poland, where twenty years ago the government had crushed rioting members of the Solidarity party, and with that crush destroyed the path of release for the people of Eastern Europe. But the wind flew on, flew over the Norwegian mountains, to finally come to rest at the island of Mageroya in northern Norway.

At the same time, at the same place, yet as far from the place as could be counted in human terms and more, a voice called out in the darkness. Filled with more anger and hate than anyone had ever heard, and any mortal would ever heard. The voice screamed "Dragon!". It was the voice of the Dark One. At the end of the last age, right at the pinnacle of his victory, the Dragon had destroyed everything. The World, the Stars, the opening to the prison of the Dark One. Everything. And the Dark One raged.

The Dark One said no more. There was no one to hear him, not even the Creator. Ever since the Wheel had started the first age in a great blast, the Dark One had tried to break trough the invisible prison which held him. And now he had succeeded. It was only a small hole, it could hardly have let his little finger come trough, had he been a human, in a prison of stone and steel. But he watched, and learned, and planned.

The World was at peace, a cold peace, a peace of terror. Small nations fought each other, but it did not matter, small nations as they were. Two great nations held the power to destroy each other, and the world, in the blink of an eye. It was a peace of terror, a peace which could be broken by giving the world something that could shift the balance. Something that could save the world from the destruction of the nuclear weapons, yet destroy the world. Something the Creator had created, something that had always been tool of his destruction. He could not rule it, but he could trap it. And he had used almost all of his power to hold the tool of his destruction from the ones that would be able to use it to destroy him. This time it would be the tool of his victory. And the Dark One decided to release his grip over something the world was not prepared for, something that would make them destroy themselves

He gave the world the One Power.


	3. A Wave of Change

Chapter 2

 A Wave of Change

The One Power spread itself as an invisible wave around the world, moving faster and faster. No one could see it coming, few could feel it, but there were machines. A new kind of meter read the wave as something. What the wave was it could not say, but it read, processed and registered.

A teleprompter in a small facility in central Russia started to print out the readings. No one heard it tick of course, because the moment the wave hit the meter, one of the scientists had destroyed a computer with the one power. It had just crashed, deleting four hours of work for a scientist named Vladimir Glenko, and he had been quite mad at it. When he started throwing disks and other stuff around the room, some of the people in it had withdrawn to the next room, and as the computer blew up, everyone else ran away.

After a while, once most of the other people had fled to their rooms or gotten blocked by guards wondering why they were running, one of Vladimir's friends, a scientist named Ivan Romanov said out "Vladi, what did you just do. You, you blew up that computer, didn't you. But how?" the man said with a voice of terror and intrigue in his voice.

Vladimir was wondering the same thing. For a moment it had felt as if he was more alive then he had ever been before. Twice alive, twenty fold even. It was like he was fighting to keep that power, but it was a magnificent fight. He was in euphoria. He had seen every little pixel on the static screen of the computer, and with his rage, he had somehow made it explode. But it was not an explosion as such, there had been no fire, the computer had just broken apart with pieces of it flying all around the room. He had felt air blowing up inside it, and them blow up more and more and more, all in the blink of an eye. Then the computer had exploded. Finally after looking around in the room for several minutes, at the disbelieving faces of his comrades, at the computer, he said simply "I don't know, but it was something that I did. I am sure of it."

At this time almost everyone had fled to the other side of the compound, some had even hidden themselves under beds and tables. Few of Vladimir's friends had stayed behind however, trying to find out what had happened. They asked him questions, but he could not tell them anything else than what he had felt, and by the looks on their faces, Vladimir supposed they were afraid the he might do the same to him. He was afraid of that himself too.

"Hey Vladimir, check this out" a voice called out from the other side of the room. It was another of his friends, Nikolai, who was holding a piece of paper in his hands. As Vladimir started walking towards him, the man continued talking. "You know that new, expensive meter that we got a few years ago, the one that isn't of any use because it's only supposed to register brain-waves or something as stupid as that. Never bothered to find out myself. Anyways, it shows some activity that would be right at the time as your… accident. It might give us a clue to what has happened."

Vladimir replied with a some irritation in his voice "First of all, it doesn't register brain waves. Those waves move at best twenty centimeters outside your skull, or so I have heard. That thing registers something even more stupid. Five years ago some idiot in the politburo was convinced that there were ghosts or something equally stupid, and had it made to register them. It's not like we have ever gotten any reading from it. And even if it could get information about ghosts, we are twenty kilometers from the next city." after looking at the surprised faces of his friends, they didn't know this, and neither would he unless he had met with an older scientist in this place who told him that over some vodka earlier. "Until now that is." Vladimir ended his words with.

After a quick glance at the paper, only to make his friends think he cared anything about it, he was a computer specialist after all, not an American ghost-searcher. Then he said to his friend. "Find out if there is any other base in Russia that holds an meter like ours. If they do, tell them to send the info to us, that way we might be able to determine the origin, speed and time of the original outburst. And make sure you get past the damn bureaucracy this time"

Vladimir was in a frenzy to find out what the readings meant. He sent one of his friends to try and find the old scientist, but the machine itself could just as well have registered nothing. It only showed a blank white sheet with a long black line with one spike. Luckily some smart scientist had come upon the idea to enable it to print the current time when activity could be found, but that was all.

In the base word traveled fast. It was quite a few who had done something that could be only described as magical. And once the staff told the guards this, sooner or later word went to some guard whom though of this as something worth telling the KGB officers on the base. And once enough reports of this came in to the KGB officers they started believing it. And the rumor that one of the scientists had registered it somehow also came to the ears of the secret police. And the local leading KGB officer was forced to send a report to Moscow. And in all the reports that were sent into Moscow, only one mentioned that a scientist would have registered the event. And if only one scientist had registered it, it was quite obvious to the head of the KGB who was to be called to brief the politburo. The bureaucracy in the Soviet Union could be remarkable fast when it included the secret police and a massive event. In only a few hours the soldiers were already marching towards Vladimir Glenko's laboratory.

And very soon the guards bashed the door in.

The scientist's in the room didn't even have the time to say a word before the political officer of the group spoke out "Vladimir Glenko, you have been ordered to go to Moscow and explain the situation to the Politburo. The plane from Moscow is flying here now, and will be here in roughly one hour. Including the time it takes to refuel the plane, the guards here will start escorting you to the plane in roughly one hour and ten minutes. Then you have about two and a half hour time in the plane to prepare whatever papers you bring with you from this room. So be ready," he said, after which he simply left while the soldiers stood around the door, holding their assault-rifles.

It took a minute before Vladimir fully realized the situation, and got in a hurry to analyze whatever small pieces of data he had managed to acquire. And in short time the guards started moving him towards the plane.

The plane moved fast. Very fast, and the distance from the scientific compound to Moscow was not too long. Vladimir didn't have much time to plan a speech, and the news from the TV took up even more of his time. It wasn't a Soviet channel of course; they were too slow in providing the important news. It was CNN, all of the high-leaders in the Soviet Union who could understand English looked at the channel, and it could be received at most governmental planes and important compounds. He was not an important enough party member to be able to see it regularly, but this plane had the equipment to see it, and no one was here to stop him.

The channel showed what was happening in the world, and it didn't take long for him to understand the magnitude of what was happening. There was no news from Africa, South America or the Soviet Union, but that was because they were either not interesting enough or that there was no free press. It was happening all over the world.

The people were doing magic, what was the correct verb he wondered, all over the world. Most did some damage, like he had, but, just like him, it was mostly minor damage. It should be, the TV didn't show. Some had done major damage. One person had broken the Golden-Gate Bridge in San Francisco in two, and another one in West Germany had begun killing people like a maniac. The report said that the man had screamed something about how he hated the world, and the world hated him. The man was gone now, but the bloody bodies in the street remained. And the cameraman did seem to like the zoom option. But considering how much they were switching between those two, they were the only major happenings. It was not all bad however. The reporters showed some miraculous savings, healings, and some things had been repaired even, all using magic. Somehow Vladimir didn't think magic was the correct word for this. He felt like there should be some other word. It was not that it wasn't magic, that it was, just that there should be another name to it.

After watching CNN dumbfounded for an hour or two, before he could start planning what he would say to the honorable members of the politburo, the plane started moving in for landing. The captain said in the speakers that he should fasten his seatbelt now. When they were going to take off he had searched like a madman to find the belt, as it was hidden under the leather seat somehow.

The landing only took minutes. Vladimir though that the politburo was in panic over what was happening, and wanted anyone with any information come to them within minutes. And while sitting in the back seat of the black Volga, happy he had found his seatbelt faster this time, his belief did only strengthen itself even more.

The car-ride had been fast, very fast, and the streets were dark and empty. The few who walked the streets were either criminals or policemen, and the criminals were too few to be able to seen. Of course everyone who walked out at night was breaking the curfew and was as such a criminal, except any possible highly ranked party member. But that would not happen of course, as those persons used cars. Vladimir smiled at the though that he might be one of those persons too soon. Very soon actually.

The Peoples Palace was fully lighted, and at nighttime it looked even greater than at few times during daytime that he had seen them. "I wonder if they light it because it looks good, or because they don't want anyone being able to sneak in", he though out load. The two guards on his sides didn't seem to care, after all they had done this many times before Vladimir considered. Was he a fool to be so struck by awe, and even a more fool to think that he could explain it? Maybe, but then again, maybe not, after all, who could explain it more than anyone who had done it himself.

The walk trough the half-lit corridors was fast, there were no people here to block his path, and soon they arrived a great oak door. Four standard Russian infantrymen stood outside, however Vladimir was surprised, as they didn't demand any papers of him. They didn't even seem to notice him, just looking down the hall with absent looking eyes. Vladimir was surprised at which levels his brain worked, registering all this. Was it like this in a real battle too? He chuckled at the though, this was a real battle after all, though not one though with weapons of destruction.

Inside the room where the vote-holding members of the politburo, almost all of them old and stuck in the old ways. The only exception, and a strange one that is, was the leader of them, Vladimir Putin, he was only fifty-seven. The correct words used by the press were "Old and wizened glorious leaders of the proletariat", but the words used on the streets were "old and cranky", though only a fool would use those words in this room. Strange however that the minister of space was present. He was not young by other terms, he was 51, but his golden hair, pure skin and height, almost two meters, gave him an even younger appearance, yet he had an aura of power and importance around him, even more so than several older members of the politburo. He didn't have a vote in the politburo, and therefore struck Vladimir's eye. Had the man been recently promoted? No matter he concluded.

Feeling sweat drip on his face, he begun to speak "I came here today to give you some information on what is happening. Considering how fast you brought me here, I suppose no one else has offered you any explanation. And alas, I can offer you little, but I think that I might be able to analyze, recreate and ultimately control this. I am one of them who had one of those, shall we say incidents. What I did is not so important, but something that is important is how I did it, and that I can do it again. You may think that this event happened at the same time all over the world, but that is not so however. Nothing simply happens instantly, it is a physical impossibility. In our scientific base we had this meter that recorded it. I think… no, think is not the right word. I am sure that I can analyze this data, and that I can do it again. And then I can teach it on. Consider it as a weapon, and it's possibilities. Even better, that if there was another meter like the one at our base somewhere in the Soviet Union, I can find out the origin of that power, and hopefully control it completely. Of course you would need to give me free hands in this, but I can guarantee that it will work." and as then ended, wondering whether he had talked too fast, and more importantly, had he said the right words, the ones the ministers would respect. He had better be able to do as he said, at least to a high enough degree to make these men happy. And if he could not, he had better be able to control his powers enough to be able to escape from Russia.

One of the men at the table said simply to him "Leave. We will talk to you soon." and two guards behind him took him by the arms and pulled him out to the corridor. Afraid that there were going to shoot him, he couldn't explain his relief when they put him down on one of the benches in the corridor. He better learn to control it soon.

After what seemed like hours, maybe it was, he though, the door finally opened. As the corridor was quite dark, and the room very well lighted, Vladimir couldn't see the mans face. He just saw a dark figure that was probably a human. Maybe this was standard procedure to intimidate the people. He could think little less before the man started walking towards him.

As the man reached him, before Vladimir could say a word, the man started talking in a low, old and absent voice. "You might have noticed me inside there when you entered. You surely looked at me long enough. I would be Isaia Baramir, honorable minister of space in the Peoples Republic of Russia." and stopped talking, notable waiting for him to reply Vladimir though. He simply said "I am Vladimir Glenko."

After a sigh from the man followed by picking up a case of tobacco from his inner coat-pocket, the man continued talking "Now hear me my little black haired friend. You promise these men a great deal. Whatever you may think, they are not stupid, and they have learned that men tend to give promises only god, should he exist that is, could keep. They believe you just did that, but if you can do half of what you said in there, they will accept you. You will work with them trough me. I am one of us too you should know." and after finishing lighted his cigarillo with a match.

Black hair? Didn't they believe me? Can I do all that I said? I must be able to, I MUST! Vladimir shouted inside his head. No matter, he would live, and he would have a chance to show them. He had reasoned out something else while outside of that room. All the events that the TV had shoved had either something to do with fire, earth or water. Fires had been extinguished with water, there had been some small earthquakes, very small in fact, and fire had been usual. And thinking of what he had felt and did, and the four historical elements, he assumed that there was air as a power too. With those he might be able to rule it all, he though with a smile on his face. The man before him might be a trouble, but leaders were more often stupid than not, maybe this one was too. But something the man had said puzzled him. "One of us. What do you mean by us? You mean a member of the politburo?" he said.

"The man took out the cigarillo from his mouth, and said "No, one of the ones who did the magic." 

Pity, very pity indeed, but he would be able to take control still. After all he was a genius, wasn't he, Vladimir though. More than this man who could not even find the right verb for casting magic. The word was cast, to cast, casting, he wanted to scream at the man, but decided it was not worth the trouble.


	4. Escaping the Old

Chapter 3 Escaping the Old  
  
The thatched roof seemed more distant than usual, Cao Long though as he lied at the small bed in the small wooden house. A few hours ago, while working at the local food processing plant, he had done something he could not describe. It felt magnificent, and because of that feeling, he had stopped working at the lines, instead trying to draw more and more of the power. He was more alive than ever. He felt like he was tenfold alive. He could see the drops of sweat at his co-workers faces, the small cogs in the machinery. Everything. However the line-foreman came to him within minutes, starting to shout at him to get back to work. That he had not liked, like he never did, but this time it was different. At that very moment he had felt as the powerful one, not the weak one that should be shouted on. And he had decided to punish the man; only he didn't know what he was doing, only that someone was trying to remove him from nirvana. And what he had done, he would now have to be punished for. It was as he had made ten unbreakable, burning, razor-sharp stones, flying around at incredible speed. Then he had directed them trough the body of the line-foreman. Moving with incredible speed they had cut the man to pieces within seconds, so fast that the man just fell apart into small pieces of meat. Cao didn't know how or why he had done it anymore, just that he had. After that he had escaped the factory of course. No one had tried to stop him, seeing what had happened to the line foreman, but he knew that soon they would come. Come to punish him.  
  
Being so deep in his thoughts, he never heard any footsteps before a figure of someone appeared over his head. He was about to try to defend himself by attacking first before he noticed that it was only Ming Li, his would be fiancé. Not much chance of that happening now. It was terrible. She was so beautiful, with her beautiful skin, long black hair, big brown eyes, and he was, whatever it was that he was.  
  
"I heard what you did at the plant. You used some kind of magic power, didn't you? No matter, the line foreman was an idiot either way. Besides. besides I did some casting too. Not like you, I just heated some water and tea, but still.". And even before she had finished, Cao had sprung himself out of the bed, shocked by the words "I did some casting too". He had though she would tell him that they would never meet again, and if not, he would have sent her away. No telling what he could do, he had though. And now he had learned she could do it too. The word was not magic and casting of course, it was channeling. He didn't know where that came from, but it was the right word, synonym, whatever it was.  
  
Sitting up at the simple wooden bed, he started talking "What did you say?" He just couldn't believe what she had said. It was impossible, or was it? Maybe it wasn't, there was no reason why females couldn't be able to channel, was there?  
  
"I said that I can cast magic too, and." but Cao cut her off by saying "The word is channeling". He said it unconsciously, but he still said it. But she continued "Well, channeling if that is the word you want to use. Now where was I, oh yes. And there is talk in the village to surround your house at night and burn it down. They don't care about the news we are getting in here. The officials say that there are some in the world who are . channeling right now, and you know how much they always lie. If they are forced to give this on the news, there must be millions of those like you and I out there. Come Cao Long, let's go together and find them." she said while getting up from the bed, and showing her hand out at Cao. "We can run fast, and they will never be able to find us. Then we will join the government, they are sure to create a guild for those like us. They have to, don't they? They serve the people, right?"  
  
It felt like hours passed, it might have been. It might also have been seconds, Cao Long could not tell. He had been waiting for the police to come and capture him and send him to the court, or maybe they would just shoot him in his bed and send the bill for the bullet to his family, considering what he'd done. Now his love told them that they would escape, flee their elders and openly rebel. On the other hand it wasn't his fault, he didn't know what he was doing, or did he? Still, going somewhere to serve the government was the right thing to do, wasn't it? And he would live. So finally he took her hand, and they sneaked away in the night together, with only the little food they had taken in the small kitchen. The villagers didn't burn down the house that night, Cao's father managed to convince them that Cao had run away somewhere. They just hoped he had not taken Ming Li, his fiancée with him, but that hope was killed when she was nowhere to be found.  
  
Cao and Ming on the other hand were running in fear for their lives. They had started their trek around midday, but it was surely past midnight once they stopped they believed, and the same thing the next day, only stopping rarely to eat their food unless they stumbled onto something edible.  
  
It was a beautiful morning, and the picture of seeing Ming sleeping almost made Cao forget where they were, what they were and their problems. It was already two days ago since they had run away from the small village, two days with minimum food and water. But it was not much worse than how it had been before they left. Nowadays their biggest problem was meeting with a soldier or policeman, asking to see their papers, which they didn't have.  
  
"What are you thinking about then?" a voice said from behind him. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed Ming awakening. As he turned around to look at her, he had only seconds to close his eyes, before a tube of water hit him in the face. She had channeled he realized, but knowing the she could channel and learning first hand was quite different. Still, it was not that bad, he could channel too. He had just not learned how to control it yet. Was it even possible? Probably.  
  
"Time to stop thinking and start walking", Ming said to him "Else I channel your mouth full of cold water and make you swallow it" and with a smile on her face she stood up and started leaning towards a small tree. The smile vanished soon however, and it was Cao's time to smile. Well, he though, it seemed quite possible to channel at will, and everyone had always told him what a strange sense of humor he had. She didn't seem happy at all for the water she had been forced to swallow. Oh yes, he smiled very much. With a grumpy look, Ming Li began to walk down towards a small field to steal some breakfast. He quickly ran after her.  
  
The field was a simple rice field, and the food quality was quite low, but it didn't matter, it was the same thing he had eaten for his whole life. There they hanged around for almost a half hour, even trying to pick up the corns using the One Power, but as clumsy as they were with it, they just chose to do it with their hands instead.  
  
"What the hell are you doing!", an angry voice called out from behind. It was the owner of this field who had spotted them. Before the man could do anything more, Cao had wrapped him up with solid air. Not as the air had solified around the man, no, he could still breath, but something much like that. Cao was shocked, this was the first time he could actually feel what he was doing to the full extent. It was a fight, but a magnificent fight. He felt more alive than ever. Had he felt this when he killed the line- foreman. He could not remember. It was all so hazy now. And with the shock he lost grip of the man.  
  
"You are one of the magicians, aren't you. Well, I hate all of you. Someday you will destroy the world with your powers. Go away, let me be, the government has a place for the likes of you, that it does. Too bad they just don't kill all of you." the man said. The man sounded angry and afraid, but the last part of what he said sounded as he said that to himself. Cao realized he had to make the man calm; after all, they were the thieves here.  
  
"Why would I destroy the world. Even if I tried, I couldn't do that, and I won't even try. I want to save the world. All of us do, channeler and normal alike. What do you mean by the government has a place for us?" he said calmly and nicely. What had the man said actually?  
  
Rising up from the ground, he had been on his knees before, the man answered. "Maybe you won't kill the world, but you make the decision that will lead to it. I am sure you bastards will do something like that. The government has set up a guild for the likes of you. Go to the village over that hill there, they will give you directions. And never return here. Ever." the man said while picking up a pitchfork. Not as if he could kill them with that, but Cao though the man felt more comfortable with some weapon in his hands. Not that he could blame him.  
  
"Come Ming. We'll go over that hill. I am sure the government knows what it's doing, and better with them than being vagabonds in the countryside here. Come", and with those words, he started walking towards the small hill. Ming was already far ahead of him, she seemed eager to help the government he though, but it's not that important, was it? 


	5. Shadow of Ignorance

Chapter 4 Shadow of Ignorance  
  
The great oak desk in the oval office, his office Richard though, was filled with all kinds of important letters, reports and memos. Of course they were important, he was Richard Person, President of the United States of America, after all, yet none of them was as important as this, few as uninformative as this. In his hands he held the full report concerning the so-called activities that happened two days ago. Magic was a better word, though no one dared use that word. They were smart, rational people after all, and smart, rational people didn't believe in magic, did they. Well, they would.  
  
Two days ago people all around the world had started casting magic, almost in unison. The reports from Europe came a few minutes earlier than the ones in Hawaii, yet no one could tell where it all started. The popular theory was that aliens or god or the devil or something else had done this to us. The popular one, there was no scientific one, at least none coherent enough to be mentioned in this report. Maybe the Russians had one, they had always been good at keeping secret, but he doubted it. He also doubted the alien theory, if they had, we would be the one to know after all.  
  
As he looked down at the paper again, searching for anything he missed, but there was nothing there. Both males and females had casted, though it seemed that the females had done less damage, and were thus less likely to be spotted doing whatever it was they had been doing. The report told of killings, damage to property, savings and several other things too. The FBI had captured some magicians, but very few of those spotted had been willing to along with the FBI. On the other hand the FBI was a large organization, they had lots and lots of people who had casted. The average seemed to be one caster per one hundred persons, but that didn't include all those that didn't report their ability. The ones they had managed to interview had been helpful though, telling them everything they knew, more or less. The information they gave seemed rather lacking.  
  
Even what the most helpful and knowledgeable of them said was not much, mostly about how great it felt, how he used one or several of the four elements, there was no better word, to create the magic results. He said it was like weaving threads into a final weave. He stated something about how he so far only had managed to do basic stuff, like a small gray mat, yet one day he would manage to do something greater. The man seemed obsessed by the term weaving, but it didn't matter, that word was as good as the next one. Too bad the scientist had suggested doing an autopsy on the man while he had overheard it; six guards had been killed when he escaped. They said the bullets didn't harm him, and the guarding of that place was quite lax besides. He had also told them about how he felt when he was "connected to the source" to quote his exact words. Something about being double alive, how he feel almost everything twice as clearly and so on. Holding on to magic was like a fight he told them. He constantly fought to control it, to make it do what he wanted. The rest of the report was a big "We don't know" formulated by standard political words. Inconvenient, but he had always been good at reading between the lines, one of his main tools from a metalworkers son to the man he was now. But damn the FBI for only taking one really useful for study. He was sure the CIA could have done it better, but their jurisdiction was foreign "relations", and the FBI had always been angry when the CIA took part in any internal problems. A pity.  
  
He didn't know what to do. It had always been so easy before, political maneuverings with the Russians, Chinese and EU had been important and hard work of course, yet that field had rules which they all know and mostly respected. Now the field had a new player who could not be seen, didn't follow the rules, and no one knew even what he was. Yet this player was not just one player, he was a living entity who could be made to take one side, or all sides. There was enough of him for every one of the great nations to take hold of. He had to move fast.  
  
"Send for senator Sumpner and general Callaghan. I wish to meet them immediately." he said while holding down the send button of the intercom. It was said that the only working part of the government offices was the White House, and when he wanted something it worked even better. Once when he asked for a new wake-up clock it had came within a little less than two hours. He didn't have time to think at anything more before the intercom beeped and his assistants voice said "Mr. Sumpner is in the capitol right now, and will come at once, but general Callaghan is at inspecting Fernhaust Base in Alabama. Shall I message your order to him?" He replied that of course he wanted to meet him, why else would he have called for him. His voice was a bit irritated as he said that to her, but all of his assistants should learn that when he said he wanted something, he meant it. Besides, this was important. The man should be here within an hour or two anyway. Senator Sumpner could wait, he was only important as the senate always wanted to keep an eye on military operations. This one would be a must for them to keep an eye one, or so they though.  
  
He tried to keep himself occupied those two hours by going trough the other reports he had before him, but his mind always wandered back to the great report, which in all it's flaws and lack of conclusions was the only thing he had. Senator Sumpner was told to wait outside until general Callaghan arrived.  
  
"I have called you here today concerning the spark of magicians which has spun up over the world, including our nation." Richard started to speak to the two men in his room. Senator Sumpner had comfortably set himself in a leather chair, while general Callaghan stood in guard posture right at the top of the US seal at the full-covering mat. He stood in a dirty camouflage- suit, obviously the man had came immediately when he had gotten the order and no-one had gotten the idea of putting a military-uniform on the plane. The two secret service men eyed him carefully, or at least Richard supposed they did, they were always wearing their standard black eyeglasses.  
  
"I do not think I need to tell you much about what the so called magicians are, or what they can do. I suppose CNN has briefed you enough. I have a report here, you can get copies of it from outside my office, but it holds mostly I don't knows. Anyway, what I want you to do is to create a group for the magicians, more specifically named USCG, or United States Casters Guild. You will draft everyone in the US who did something special two days ago, male or female. We cannot force them to join of course; we are the land of the free after all, but try to group them together in at least some kind of fashion. General Callaghan, I know you are the right man to create a government office like this. They will be under your command of course, but I want you to have a magician as co-leader. You senator Sumpner will control the economic and political assets of this. This organization, USCG, will be under my direct control, not trough the Senate or House of Representatives. Have I made myself clear?"  
  
The men stood silent for a few seconds, until Callaghan finally spoke out " I will do as you say Mr. President, but I have two requests. One is that I control this office, not the honorable Senator here, and not you. My one is second is that I will receive full rights to recruit the magicians, in any way I wish. Of course I will remind you that by forcing them to join the possibility of rebellion and riot increase exponentially, so you need not worry about me going against the laws, which you so proudly uphold. " and with almost an afterthought he said " And good laws they are too sir.". No matter, Richard though. Callaghan was a good general, an excellent general, and he was at his absolute best when starting up a new military organization from scratch, which had been useful when intervening in third- world nations. And a military organization of magicians was just what he needed now. No doubt that would be what they would be set up against. With magicians, who knows what the Commies would do. And he was right too, anyone not fully connected to an organization should not take part in it's leading.  
  
As he looked up from his thoughts, he immediately noticed that general Callaghan, usually a serene man, was so nervous he was almost sweating. How long did I wonder, Richard though. Well, best tell him what I decided; I do hate to look at nervous men, even though with him usually being so annoying he kind of deserves it.  
  
"I accept to your requests. Now move out, both of you, I have work to do. ", and with a sigh or relief, general Callaghan started moving towards the door. Senator Sumpner seemed irritated at the lack of talking done to him. But both men soon walked outside, surely to talk between themselves on how to start up. Richard hoped that Callaghan would come out on top of that discussion, he surely would. Then if he knew the man right, soon there would be ten thousand soldiers, all putting up recruitment posts around the US. There would probably be a press release by him later on the after noon. Good, I don't like to wait. Time waits for no one. 


	6. To Dream and Wake Up

Chapter 5 To Dream and Wake Up  
  
"Look mommy, there's an evil man", a small girl in a red suit shouted while holding her mothers hand and pointing at Vladimir. How has they got into this place, it was a highly important and well-guarded science lab in the middle of Siberia. Or it had been just a minute ago, now it was a small park in the middle of some great city, probably St. Petersburg looking at the fine houses, well they were finer than most Russian houses at least; several of them were falling apart, left unattended for half a century or more.  
  
Blink.  
  
Now it was the familiar laboratory again. Solid white walls, computer screens hanging from the roofs, tables, chairs, a bulletproof window showing a white examination room with concrete walls. The small girl and her mother were inside it, still looking at him. Or actually they were looking at themselves, as from the examination room the glass window should look as a large mirror. But they were still looking at him.  
  
"They found their way inside here. We cannot let anyone know of this place, else the counterrevolutionaries find out where we are. Kill them." a voice said behind him. Who was that, Vladimir wondered.  
  
As he turned around, he saw that it was Isaia standing there. Honorable minister of space in the Soviet Union, High-Leader of the Peoples Casters Union, or so the man liked to call himself at least. I am supposed to be the leader of the Magicians, Vladimir shouted inside his head, but there was no one there to hear him. Isaia had taken full control of the Union. Vladimir didn't doubt the man had done the same in the Space Ministry. He was a man you didn't say no to. Maybe he even had managed to find a way to use magic to control people's minds? But now there was no choice, was there?  
  
"No, I won't do it." Vladimir answered back. I will not become a murderer, or will I, he wondered in his head. The girl had called him evil after all. Was she right? Was she wrong? Did it matter?  
  
As Isaia took a cigarillo out of his mouth, strange Vladimir though, he was sure the man didn't have one when he had turned around, Isaia drew a loud sight and started talking "And why not? Well my friend, you don't need to answer that question anyway. I'll take care of it." and he reached for the intercom. "I have just received evidence that comrade Vladimir here has sympathized with the counter-revolutionaries. Take him to the examination room and kill him. Oh, and kill the two persons already there too, they are enemies."  
  
Before Vladimir could understand what was happening, all three doors to the room were opened, with a flood of soldiers in brown uniforms entering. They took him by the arms just at the moment he understood what they were doing here. He tried fighting them as they started moving him towards the door to the examination room, a door which he was sure just had appeared. Finally, when he was already in the white examination room, he tried reaching for the source, the magic source it was officially termed, but everyone called it the source by now. But he could not reach it. Something was in between. Then he saw something what he could only call tendrils of darkness reaching out from Isaia from the other side of the window, which should in this case too be a mirror from his point of view. Why wasn't it? They blocked him from the source. He tried reaching it again, in vain. He could hear Isaia laugh from the other side of the window, even though he was sure this room was sound proof. Maybe it was the door, but when he looked for it, it was gone. Two loud bangs and on his right side the girl and her mom had fallen in a pool of blood. Then it started ringing. It was as if his head would fall apart, the loud noise was so great.  
  
Blink.  
  
Vladimir sat himself up in his bed while the wake-up clock was ringing as the last day had come. It was just a dream he realized now, but it was a magnificent dream. Any other person would probably call it a nightmare, but not he. He had said no to Isaia, and that alone made it a more beautiful dream than he could imagine. Yet sweat dropped from his bare chest. He had to get a shower. He was one of the lucky few to have his own shower, or he would be later at least. So far they had only had five days on themselves to draft magicians, if that was the right word that is, into the Union. Only about one thousand had come so far, all of them volunteers. This base was meant to accommodate fifteen thousand people; it was a military base, emptied five days ago, after it had been taken for the Union. Right now everyone had a shower of his or her own.  
  
After he had finished showering and had gotten himself into uniform, the intercom found in all officers' rooms rang. I am sure that Isaia had created a weave; they liked to call the spells that, which showed him when I'm ready to go to work. It was no wonder if he had of course, something like that would probably be easy to create. It would be hard to spot too, the male magicians all agreed they couldn't see each others weaves any good, if all. The females, there were three hundred of them, said they could see each others weaves quite good, and also know if any female was a caster, how strong she was and if she held the source. The males could do some of that too, but in a far smaller degree.  
  
Suddenly waking up from his thoughts and quickly pressing the receive button on the intercom, Isaia's familiar voice said trough the intercom "Comrade Vladimir, I hope you had pleasant dreams. Come to the main compound, room 5B, there is something I wish to ask you."  
  
Hmm, something wants to ask me. Usually he demands that I explain something to him, or does something anyway. I wonder what it is. I better hurry anyway, Vladimir though. It was good that most of the buildings were connected trough and underground net of tunnels, it was freezing outside. The floor in the tunnels even had a nice red carpet; he only needed to put on his indoors, black leather shoes.  
  
As he reached into the room, holding a cup of coffee he had picked up from someone less important than him along the way, seeing what was in the room, he almost dropped his mug. Actually he dropped it, but he managed to seal it in a weave of air, then picking it up again. But happy about how his reflexes had managed to use magic was the least thing on his mind. The room he entered was the same room he had been in the dream at. The walls, the doors, the computers, the window leading to the examination room, everything. There were several rooms alike this one of course, and the door to the examination room was missing, you entered it from the other side. But inside that room was the girl and her mom from the dream last night. Was it possible to change someone's dreams with magic? It might be, but no one should be able to learn to do that so fast. So far they had only learned how to do the most basic magic, using one of the four elements they had found the source to hold so far. Few weaves held two elements, none three so far.  
  
Isaia started talking, at least he didn't have a cigarillo Vladimir noticed "These two were found walking at the outskirts of the base. I think that they may be counter-revolutionaries, fighting against the communistic revolution. Don't let them deceive you, many of the enemies use small children, even their own, as deception. What do you think we should do with them?" he said in a low, monotone voice.  
  
Vladimir's thoughts ran without direction. The girl in the examination room was crying while its mother tried to comfort it. The two doors leading to the rooms beside this one were closed, were there soldiers behind them? Maybe, but then again maybe not. He remembered what had happened in the dream. He had said no, and he was about to die. He didn't want to die; no he wanted to live forever. Once when he was in his two year period in the army, he had been forced during the last half year of his training to fight in Chechnya, his commander had led them into a fight while shouting "Who wants to live forever?" He wanted to do that, and had hid himself under a rock. Ten minutes later he was the only survivor of his group. He had made up a fine story, which gave him a medal even. And he still wanted to live.  
  
"If you think they are counter-revolutionaries, I'm sure you are right. We might have use of them living to tell us who their contacts are, but if you want to kill them, go right ahead. Actually I rather believe that testing our offensive spells on living subject might be quite useful, especially if we gather a larger group to observe?" he said. Those two would probably die, but rather them than him. Besides, it had just been a dream. They couldn't even see him.  
  
Later on the day as he walked trough the corridor towards his room he went trough the happenings of the day. They had summoned roughly a hundred fellow magicians. First Isaia had wanted to test something, and hap used Air to pull the child and mother away from each other, and told someone to hold the mother while he would test something with the child. Both of the subjects had been crying wildly, and in between the sobs the mother had tried to say words like "Please" and "No". Then Isaia had done five small weaves of air, holding the legs, arms and the head of the child, still crying. Then the crying had stopped as Isaia pulled the weaves and the legs, arms and head of the child flew around the room. Luckily someone had been smart enough to make a wall of Air between the crowd and the subjects, so no one got stained clothes. Then the mother suddenly slumped to the ground. Isaia had probably told the channeler to release her. The mother started to crawl towards the place where her child had been a minute ago. She never made it, as she literally melted on her way there. Then Isaia started talking "Some of you might think this was a terrible thing to do. But remember, they were traitors to the will of the proletariat. And since I am sure none of you will ever betray the proletariat, you have nothing to fear, do you. Besides, that melting spell was quite efficient, I am sure all of you learned it. Now return to your studies, and Glenko, come with me" he said, and then walked out of one of the doors in the room. As soon as he had left, Vladimir heard the voices of vomiting in the room, but he didn't have time to see it, as he was in a hurry to follow Isaia. A bit later he Isaia had talked to him after which he started walking to his room.  
  
The TV-screen flickered on as Vladimir entered his room for lunch. He had used magic to press down the button on the remote control, doing simple things like that happened from time to time now, but rarely unless he concentrated on it. This time he had decided to start the TV using a weave, and it had worked. If he would do that all the time, someday it would be normal to him. He was not a psychologist like, he had never been much interested in that, only waves and some biology. He had just had an interesting discussion with Isaia. It seemed the man had discovered a new element to supplement the four they had already found. He called it soul, mind or spirit; he hadn't made up his mind yet. Vladimir supposed Isaia had discovered it days ago, keeping it to himself to gain an advantage. For a while that is, everybody had to tell everyone what he or she had discovered sooner or later, a fact that Isaia reluctantly had to agree with. Of course a few days couldn't hurt, and the advantage he got was surely useful for him, even though he would never admit it. He had convinced Isaia of that, or was it the other way around? It was kind of foggy, Vladimir pondered at how someone could be so cold and heartless while making someone do something that they didn't realize themselves even. Anyway they had decided to keep their discovery a secret for a few days, or maybe a few weeks even.  
  
As he started eating his officers' meal consisting of meat, potatoes and some salad, the TV, showing CNN started showing World Report after the several boring commercials. "Hello. This is World Report with George Croft and Laura Smith. Our headlines for today are; A Week since the "Magicians Wave", what has changed, what are the governments doing, what are they; New Terror in West Germany, two-hundred people killed in a small German village just south of Braunschweig, the police suspects the same killer as a week ago in Ramstein; A strong economic recovery after the stocks plummeted last week following the "Magicians Wave" and finally, the USSR reports that Norwegian terrorists were caught trying to blow up a power plant in the Kola peninsula. All that just after these commercials."  
  
Hmm, so that's what the KGB has been doing. Five days ago I told them that the origin of the wave was in Mageroya, Norway. They told me that Norway would never allow the Soviet Union to build a base of any kind on their soil; they are a part of NATO after all. They just told me to wait and do some other work while the KGB would start a campaign to give us an excuse to invade them. Damn me for starting to argue about it just today with Isaia, Vladimir thought. He had had a long and angry argument with Isaia about how necessary it was to get to the origin. He had lost the argument, painfully.  
  
Some worthless commercials had gone by on the TV, but then one caught Vladimir's notice. A man and a woman, both young and good looking stood on a white background while some sparkles of fire flew on. Their dresses also flew in a wind, and than a voice started talking "Are you one like these? Can you cast spells? Do you want to learn more? Are you from the US or Canada? If yes, join the United States Casters Guild. Remember, your government needs you, and only we can help you control this skill of yours. Join the USCG, make a difference, whoever you are."  
  
So that was how the Americans were doing it. Figures, they were always so focused on TV, they would recruit that way too, Vladimir chuckled inside himself. Soon the commercials ended and Vladimir started concentrating on the news again, laughing a bit at the irony.  
  
"It has been now seven days since the "Magicians Wave" hit us, leaving death and destruction in it's way. Governments have so far been unable to determine the origin and cause of the wave, but almost all working governments have started up a group for these magicians. The US and Canada have joined together to form USCG or the United States Channelers Guild. The EU has created the Casters Ministry and China is showing off with its Peoples Magicians Guild. Russia hasn't reported anything officially yet, but we have received information that they are creating a group called the Peoples Casters Union. No other information about them has been given to the public, but the almost all governments are complaining about how few people are willing to join. Some are even afraid. A recruitment post for the Casters Ministry in the EU has been burned to the ground." The program continued of course, but Vladimir had already eaten all his food, and he was in a hurry to get back to work. There was always so much work, and much of it was paper work. The only one who didn't do paperwork was Isaia, but he was member of the Politburo after all. Strange about the seven days. If they had asked him he would have said five days. Well, it had been a hectic time after all.  
  
As he was walking trough the underground tunnels, one of the casters came up to him, Dr. Juri "Frankenstein" Nikolaiov. The man had been a doctor in medicine once, but he had been imprisoned because of his experiments to the subjects. When he channeled in the prison and learned of the Union, he joined immediately. Not the most popular man in the base, actually he was the least popular one, but he was still one of them, and a quite strong one at that. Not even half the strength of himself or Isaia, Vladimir though, but a strong one none-the-less.  
  
"Hello Commander. I will be continuing with my experiment on field medication using the source. I had my first attempt yesterday, a failed one at that, but I think I have a better idea on what to do now. It's a very complex weave, using even three of the powers, and I was hoping you could comment on it. I have understood that no one else at this base has used three or more elements in a weave at once? No matter, I am quite proud of this on myself. Come and look."  
  
What was the man talking about field medication, Vladimir wondered. He would rather just do something else, almost anything, but a weave using three powers would be magnificent to watch. He had devised a small trick to see the weaves more clearly, it would come useful now. The man would be hopefully be disposed of later. But not now.  
  
After a walk trough the underground tunnels to the holding area, Vladimir listened to the man explaining what he was doing. He had instructed Juri to keep the discussion to how he used three powers at once, without telling anything about his experiments. Vladimir realized he didn't want to know. Juri seemed unhappy at being unable to tell, but he was used to no one liking what he did.  
  
As they reached the study room, Vladimir finally realized what Juri had meant. In the room a boy that was maybe ten years old was sitting. Or if you could call it sitting, he was missing one of his legs. Juri explained something about how he needed to create a usual field trauma, and with those words, he closed a weave of air around the surviving leg, and another one around the boy himself. Then he separated the two weaves, ripping the boys leg off. Vladimir expected the boy to shout high enough to be heard at the other side of the base, but it seemed that a ball of air had closed, or opened depending on which way you looked at it, the mouth of him. Not a flicker came out of his mouth, but tears did flow. Several of them in fact.  
  
Juri began speaking up "See commander, a normal field trauma, a missing leg. Of course they will not be cut of this nicely, but we need to start it simple, don't you think. Now watch while I try to put it back together again." and he used a weave to put the leg on it's original location, while using earth and fire to put it back and using some water to make it colder. The entire process took maybe two minutes, using fire, earth and water all at once. It wasn't until the full weaving was finished that Vladimir realized he had only though of the boy as a subject. And it had felt good too. That was something he would have to continue doing, feeling good that is.  
  
The leg was fastened in place, but he noticed it was as useful as a piece of meat. When he tried picking on it with a small weave, he noticed that blood didn't flow in its veins. The weave had been good, but useless. Pity for the subject, but he was unimportant. He said to Juri "You have done good. But the leg doesn't work. It's just a piece of meat now. Just cut it off again, then think of what you may have done wrong, and continue with the arms. Tell me if you have any success." and begun to walk towards the door. He heard a small rip before the door started closing, which was probably the leg coming off again he though. As he walked trough the red and gray half-lit corridors, he could do nothing but smile at how much easier it was now than it had been just five days ago. Yes, better. 


	7. The Builder of Destruction

Chapter 6 The Builder of Destruction  
  
It was a rainy late-winter day, yet the huge square was filled with people. To Cao Long and Ming Li there were people as far as the eye could see. Cao was taller than most of his countrymen, but he still couldn't see the end of the mass of people. Right at the middle of the square, all the magicians who would pledge their loyalty to the state were standing, with him being one of them. The rest of the people, the masses, were just that, masses, though Cao didn't see it that way. There had been an order to come and watch the ceremony, the government wanted to use the footage as propaganda. And the image Tiaman Square filled with people who could cast magic would be excellent to give a false impression to the world; the fact that it was just the few in the middle who had the skill was unimportant.  
  
"And so I pledge to serve the state until my last breath, defend the spirit of the revolution with my last heart-beat, never to fail." Cao hear coming out of his mouth. He had lived in a small village most of his life, with all these people saying the same as he did, he felt like a robot doing what he was told, but it was a magnificent feeling. Or was it? There were more pledges made, but they came out of his mouth instinctively, and if they wouldn't come, no one would notice anyway.  
  
"Congratulations, you are now a part of the Peoples Magicians Guild. You will be follow me to the compound." the man in the front shouted out. Cao didn't start walking; he was instead pulled forward by the mass of people. There was no worry for him being crushed, he had casted a shield of air around him when he noticed the risk of injury here. Looking to his left Ming Li also had space around here, suggesting she had made something similar. He couldn't see her weaves, nor she his, but he supposed it was something about the gender. It was hard to understand, but he felt as he had known once why it did so, but the feeling went off as soon as he felt it. Didn't matter.  
  
The walk to the compound was long, very long in fact. Beijing was a big city and the compound was quite a walk from the city too. They could have used cars but the propaganda value of them walking seemed to great to miss. Happy and smiling people stood all around them, several waving from the windows too. The non-channelers that were walking blended into the crowd on the sides of the street, and once they were out of the city the rest went away from group. But finally they reached there.  
  
The compound was the least it could be called, it was a city. Or it might have been a city once, now it was almost empty. After all it had only been eight days since the wave, few people had arrived so far, maybe twenty thousand so far, Cao figured later at night when he was in his simple bed, but not now however.  
  
As he reached the gate to the compound, after a long, very long, queue, a military officer with a questionnaire paper of some sort met him. The man spoke up with an absent voice "Please state your name, sex, age, citizen- number and former position." and as Cao answered the mans questions, he received some form of ID with his name and number on it, and was allowed to go into the compound. His ID-tag also held what room he would sleep in, and as it was already late, he was forced to go and sleep almost at once, before he could find Ming.  
  
The night was quite uneventful, and in the morning he decided to walk around the city to see what was happening, and where the training, food and other areas were.  
  
The streets were paved with hard concrete, and the rain was gushing down on Cao. There were no formal lessons held here so far, no one had had the time to organize such a thing in such little time, besides, who would be the teachers? Nine days and twenty thousand people, with three or more thousand new each day. There were even no formal uniforms given, most people here were just in simple farmers clothes. He didn't even have any shoes anymore, someone had stolen them while he was asleep, he muttered angrily, but low. At least the rain wasn't a problem; he had a good skill with grabbing the one power now. It succeeded almost two thirds of all the time, and it felt great. Though he feared that grabbing too much of it and losing control might have unfortunate consequences. I know, I have always know, he though, but before he could grab it, and think of where it came from, it was gone already. Probably nothing. He was having some strange feelings now and then, but everyone else was probably having them too.  
  
Most of the people here don't seem to use the power to protect themselves from the rain he said to himself in an inner monologue as he walked between some gray apartment buildings. Not that I would call them fools, even I don't think on it all the time, Cao thought while looking at the people trying to defend themselves from the rain by drawing their coats or whatever clothes they had over their heads. Some looked at him and tried to do the same thing he did. Some failed, some did not. Some were just crying in the drains for some reason. Had the One Power made them mad? It did feel great, they probably just couldn't comprehend. But they would. Eventually.  
  
This lot deserved some teaching, but he supposed that they would just have to wait until the leaders, if there were such a thing here, told them what to do. They were simple farmers most of them, and the leaders were servant leaders of the people's republic, or that is what he had been told in school at least. He hadn't been ever so sure about that, or what it even meant.  
  
"Cao, is that you?" a female voice shouted behind him. He had been busy thinking at the foolishness of everyone around here, but not that busy. As he turned his head around, he noticed it was Ming walking towards him. It was the reason he had walked outside in the first place too, to find her.  
  
As she came within close distance, she spoke up excitedly to him "Cao, can you believe it? I was just walking on another street, when two people bumped into each other. Then one person who was looking at them while walking forward, bumped into another person, a big and angry person. When the fight started I retreated trough an alley, and then I saw you on this street. Incredible piece of chance, don't you think? Anyways, where are you sleeping, I am sleeping with an old lady who still lives here from the times before this city was emptied. She is very nice, and even game me these new clothes. where are your shoes by the way Cao?". She spoke so fast that Cao didn't have quite time to understand it all at once, but he had always been a fast learner. Usually very fast.  
  
"I sleep in the peoples barrack 124. My shoes were stolen by some thief while I was asleep, but I am happy to see you got the luck of the draw." he replied with a sarcastic voice. Some people just had luck, others had less luck. Usually the women came out on top whoever had the luck. The Peoples Magicians Army was no difference. Nope, none at all.  
  
"So, thinking about taking any classes Cao?" she said to him with an expectant glow in her eyes. It seemed she was plotting something that he wouldn't want to know really. The nice dress she wore made her seem even more innocent, but he should know better, he had learned the hard way.  
  
"Classes? Are there any classes here, or are you planning something. Don't lie to me now, I will know if you do" he said with a smile on his face. He couldn't sense someone lying of course, but that meant that they couldn't either know he was. Yes his smile widened even more. Strangely that she smiled back too, he had never actually understood why she did that when he acted like now.  
  
"I am not planning anything my love. Go to the house on Fourth Street and ask about classes. I promise that you won't be unhappy about it." she said with a smile. "And when you return, we can rest in my private room" she then whispered into his ear. That alone was worth going there and asking for classes, besides, he might learn something on those classes too, he wanted to learn everything.  
  
As he started walking towards there, after asking Ming's address, he was sure he could feel an evil smile at him from her. Probably just his imagination. The walk was a generally uninteresting one, by the cracked houses; pieces of clothing that had fallen on the street, and fellow channelers. At one location someone jumped out of a top floor of a six- story building down to the concrete street, yet he didn't even get a scratch from the fall, and no one had channeled to help him, that Cao was sure of. Strange, but things like that happened. Rarely, but they happened.  
  
As he reached the building, a good-looking government building, the calm and lazy atmosphere inside the building surprised him. Didn't the leaders work as hard as the workers in China? Did they? Oh well, not important now, he though.  
  
He approached a man who looked important and picked him with the One Power on his shoulder. "Excuse me, but I would like to ask about classes, Ming Li, someo.." he started talking, but was interrupted by the man after that. The man picked up a piece of paper on a clipboard and a pen and started talking to him.  
  
"Name, ID, and location of stay" he said strictly. Cao answered simple "Cao Long, 210591-4325S, Barrack 124, bed 43" he answered in the same angry tone as the man had asked. The man filled in something more at the paper for a minute or two, and then promptly said. "Cao Long, you are now teacher of advanced fire-techniques in building 34. Go there and get your class hours and don't bother me any more", and with those words, the man disappeared into the building before Cao could say a word. He did notice a piece of paper in his hands, a copy of the one the man had written. Ming would pay for this, yes she would. And in the end they would kiss and make up, or that was what he hoped.  
  
It took quite a while for him to find the correct building. Everything looked the same here, and the building numbers seemed totally random. Still, in the end he found the building, and soon he started teaching until about 12 o'clock, after which he went out of the building and started walking towards Ming's.  
  
Later in the day he started going trough the events of the day. It had been a hard morning. Damn Ming for making him teach those students. And damn their stupidity. He was thinking of showing them some neat tricks he had learned during his travels here, and they would have done the same to him, but no. He had been forced to learn them how grasp the source safely. Strange however, almost no one else here had known how to do that, and of those few, even less were as good as him. But he had always been a fast learner; maybe it was just a coincidence.  
  
And the meeting with Ming hadn't been any nice either. The old woman she lived with had been a pain, and then they had made him take classes after that. It was at the middle of the night for the sake of the state. And then he had just been forced to teach them for six hours straight in seizing the source. They had even made him teach women, although men couldn't do that, he wanted to shout in their faces. He didn't, and thanked god that he hadn't too.  
  
Now the clock on the wall showed almost seven. He needed to clear his head of thoughts before he went to sleep. He wasn't exactly tired anymore, that coffee in the teacher's room was bound to keep him awake with his thoughts for at least six more hours. Then he noticed a sports-hall. Sports might tire his body enough to make him sleep, he though, while pushing the other people to the side walking in. If he had though about it, he would have realized that he didn't push them to the side, it was his teacher's badge that did.  
  
The clothing room held all kinds of sporting clothes, cheap ones, but still sporting clothes. He noticed a karate-suit in a corner there, and spoke out "Excellent, some sparring is bound to clear my mind and get me tired.", though the noise in the room made it sure that no one heard him. He had always liked the way fighting emptied your mind of anything else, and that was exactly what he needed now. He even found a brown belt, and continued out to the great hall.  
  
In there he noticed that the door outside was open, and on the grass field people were sparring all kinds of martial arts. For commoners it was technically illegal to train most of the martial arts, but in military organizations people needed to know how to fight. When he stepped outside, he noticed that someone had used white sticks to create tatamis on the ground. Excellent.  
  
As he was looking out for a good partner to spar with, someone tapped him on his shoulders, and turning around he saw a man about a head taller than him, a very tall man, with a brown belt too. "You look like one with some skills, shall we spar a bit. They will be having a competition here in a half hour, and I never fight in competitions cold. What do you say?" the man said.  
  
It would be a hard fight, Cao didn't doubt that; the man seemed much bigger than him, even if he had always been a tall man. But he did like good fights, and the harder the better. At home he had once won against three others.  
  
As they stepped into the tatami, Cao took a good fighting stance and hardened every muscle in his body. He even put his hands in a fist, something that it shouldn't usually be. Then he begun.  
  
The man was cautious, and stayed well out of kicking or punching range. His hands were set on either side of his chest, creating an opening to punch in his chest. Only few would have gone for a hit there though, it was an obvious trap. The fight went on like this for almost thirty seconds, before the man grew frustrated. Frustration was good for Cao, that would make the man tired, and tired men lost. Always.  
  
The man started a hard right-hand punch. Very hard, if Cao hadn't moved, the punch might have even gone trough him had he been against a wall too, that is. But the mans arms were longer than Cao's, almost six centimeters. One would have been easy, two acceptable, three hard, but six, that length made it impossible for Cao to come close enough to attack without being hit down.  
  
The man kept punching, right hand, left hand, and then the right hand again. There was even a kick. His punches made it soon impossible for Cao to pull back any more without stepping out of the tatami. The man was not worth it. Instead he started push away the mans punches. He never saw the hand coming forward of course, all good punches were far too fast for that, but somehow he managed to put his hand in position and push the man away. The eye and the backbone were sometimes faster than the brain, and even more so in fights. The man kept punching right and left respectively, but he went slower and slower all the time, it took time to draw his hand back. This went on for almost ten seconds. There might have been twenty punches, maybe more, and even some kicks, when the man made his fatal mistake. The man drew back his arm to make a punch, not a long draw, just a few centimeters, but it gave Cao more than enough time to make his own punch, and one moment Cao's punch landed in the mans chest, the other second the man was a good way back, grasping for air; which he would get, the punch had not been hard, or even dangerous, but it was a good punch.  
  
He was just about to move his foot and push the man down, when everything started to go dizzy. The man was now five men, and all of them coming on him, then five fists hit him, all in the same place for some strange reason too, and he was on the ground. Before he passed out, he noticed that several people in the crowd around them were also stubbering, and some had fallen down already. What was happening, he though, and then the dreams begun.  
  
Cao stood in a dark chamber. It was a huge chamber, and the only thing that he could see there was a dark man, or it might be a man, a dark being was more appropriate to call it. It beckoned him "Come Dragon, shall you gamble again. You wish to save the world, and kill your friends. Again, and again and again, from the start of time until the end of time, until you surrender to me."  
  
"Who are you, what gamble are you talking about, I have never killed anyone. Never will." Cao replied. Actually he shouted it out. Who was he, what was he, but more importantly, why was he? The darkness seemed to creep closer to him, though he had a strange aura of light around. He hadn't noticed it before. Why have I not noticed it before? What is this place! Who is he? The other man didn't have an aura of light around him. He had an aura of darkness, even more dark than the darkness of the chamber.  
  
"So you say. You are wrong. You WILL serve me. You MUST! Or else you will kill everyone you love, know, like and. hate." the being said to him. Cao was sure he saw a smile form on the dark man. Why would he kill everyone, how could he even? The man at the factory had been a mistake. It wasn't his fault; he didn't mean to do it. Still, he was responsible. But he wouldn't kill anyone else.  
  
The words that came out of his mouth surprised even himself "Never will I serve you, Father of Lies. I have never served you, and never will. I will not kill anyone. No!" and with his great shout of hate, which sounded more like the anger of a five-year old he though, he threw something he had in his hands at the dark one. They were two dices. Have I held them in his hand the whole time? I couldn't have, that's impossible.  
  
The creature spoke out to him "A five and a four. Not bad throws, though in the real world you could do better. As could I." he said gleefully "The five for the lover, the four for the general. Now it is my turn to throw." the man said while picking up the dice. Why do I sometimes think of him as the man, sometimes the dark one, sometimes the being, Cao though? And why did I call him Father of Lies, is he even real? I must be dreaming, mustn't I? More he couldn't wonder before the dice landed before him, a six and a two. Then the man spoke up again. "You see Cao, how simple it is to kill the ones you love. The six beats your five; your four beats my two. Already you have killed your lover, banned her to death and pain. But you can still save her, join me." he said in the same dark, taunting voice.  
  
"No, nothing you do here can harm anyone. Nothing", but as he was about to continue, he heard a scream from his left. He could barely see the figure of a woman, before she was drawn in trough the floor. A sound from his right side let him see a man, someone in casual clothing not much older than him, he though, walking away into the darkness.  
  
"There you are mistake, my young Dragon. Or shall I call you Xiwan maybe? That was your past name you know. Aaah, you are surprised. You know so little, too little. If you join me you could know it all. Live forever with the ones you love. Just one step below me. But you won't do that, will you? But whom shall we throw for this time. Yes, the friend and the scientist. Those are always the best ones, don't you think?" the man said to him. Strange, but it seemed that the mans voice didn't come from him, but instead talked directly inside his head, Cao though. But he threw.  
  
Two ones landed before the man. The two small dots on the dice radiated a red, angry color. And did the eyes of the man. The eyes of the dark one, Cao muttered to himself. The man didn't say a word of course, only threw them back, with two sixes landing before him. Again, on his left side, he just barely glimpsed two men falling down into the floor.  
  
"Now it is my time to choose who we play for. We play for the builder and myself. Yes we do." The man seemed surprised, something Cao was sure that it or he had never been before. It was even more surprised to see, or not see, the two dice hitting him in the eye. And Cao ran. Ran and ran and ran, looking backwards to see if the man was after him. And then he bumped into him.  
  
"FOOL! I AM NOT REAL HERE, BUT YOU ARE, AND WHAT HAPPENS HERE IS REAL FOR YOU. YOU BROKE THE RULES; YOU HAVE ALREADY TAKEN ONE MORE STEP TOWARDS ME. TAKE ONE MORE, JOIN ME, DRAGON!" the dark ones voice boomed inside his head. He didn't know what to do, and didn't have to either, because the next thing he knew what opening his eyes and lying on the grass ground by the sports center. Everyone else around was on the ground lying too, all of them in some kind of strange state. If he hadn't been so much in thoughts, he would have noticed how all of them finally recovered. But he couldn't help dreading that what had happened in the dream was real, and that the man was real. 


	8. Reports

Chapter 7  
Reports

The oak desk was filled with piles of papers and coffee stains now, far different from what it had been just eleven days ago. Eleven days ago magic had been something to ridicule, he had been in good control of everything, there had been some forecasts for improving relations with the USSR. But that was then, now was now, Richard thought. He had just been awake for one and half a day talking with the Russians about the Norway incident. Five days ago the Soviets claimed Norwegian soldiers, terrorists, whatever, had tried to blow up a nuclear power plant on the Kola Peninsula. They lied of course, the CIA had verified that, and the Norwegian government had protested greatly against what the USSR claimed of them. It seemed all so clear, but the media, he though. The so-called liberal media wanted to believe that the Soviet government was great; they wanted to believe that the US government was evil and oppressive. Then there was the conservative media, they said things like "These Soviets are liars and murders, which have killed millions and will do anything to do what they want. And they want war with Norway, and with us. They are the evil empire on Earth and must be destroyed". A collision course for war was what was happening. War, did they really want that? They had to know what it might end with if it came to that, didn't they? Well, that was five days ago. Yesterday a Soviet outpost near the border to Norway had been hit by artillery fire. The Soviets had gotten in rage over that, and threatened with war. It was quite strange too, but a week ago it had been announced that a huge scale military exercises was to take place right by the Norwegian border. And the media seemed to have missed this fact completely.

Richard almost lied down in his chair, drinking a bit of cold coffee. He then put the cup down on the table, leaving yet another coffee stain on some important paper. Well, the Norway incident was important, but this was important too. The USCG. Ten days ago people around the world had started casting magic. Now he was about to get a report from general Callaghan and senator Sumpner, on how the first week of recruiting and training had gone. That was all he had time to think before a knock on the door told him they were already here.

"Send them in," he said over the intercom to his secretary. Strange, but she hadn't announced them coming over it, well, nothing important about that, he though. As Callaghan and Sumpner stepped in, he noticed that the secretary desk was empty. I need to worry less about my staff; there are more important issues to take care of. "So, give me the general info on how things are going? And record this conversation, I think I feel a bit groggy."

"Groggy, sir? Oh, well you do seem a bit tired. I don't have a recorder on me though, maybe Callaghan has one?" Sumpner replied in a strangely friendly tone. Usually the man was either speaking like a superior or a like an ass kisser. When he talked to crowds he talked nothing, twisting words to pointless sentences that sounded like a smart man was talking, but never friendly and like to an equal.

"No, I don't have one, but I think Mr. "Don't fuck with the pres. or I am going to kill you" behind me here has already told them over his microphone to get here one. We don't have to wait long for one to..." was all Callaghan could say before a servant stepped in trough a door with a recorder. Pressing the record button and leaving it on the desk he stepped out of the room.

"I think I'm going to begin. Well, as you know, eight days ago you told us to start the USCG agency. We spent one day planning, and then we have started a great drafting campaign, using nationwide TV, radio- and newspaper -ads. Also with the aid of senator Sumpners contacts here, we have gotten the right to use military forces to create recruitment locations in practically every city, town and village in the country. And we are looking forward starting the same kind of drafting in Canada in the next few days. Well, anyway we got about one thousand the first day, two thousand five hundred the second, three thousand the fourth day, then dropping with about five hundred per day. But right now we have about thirteen thousand five hundred magicians registered. Compared to the other major countries, the EU has two thousand, though they started just yesterday, the USSR has, according to our best estimates maybe fifty thousand. India has about fifteen thousand and China has more or less one hundred thousand magicians, divided into four camps of which all are more or less the same size." Callaghan said in a casual voice.

"One hundred thousand! My god, with those numbers they could, yes, that is a good question, what can they do?" Richard shouted, though his voice lessened at the end.

General Callaghan was just about to say something, but was cut off by Sumpners commanding voice "Well, as for what the magicians can do, so far it has mostly been simple things, like creating flames, winds and that sort of simple stuff. We have been able to discover, from what they are telling us of course, that they use four kinds of powers, or at least they could use, so they tell us. They use only one of the sources at once when casting, sometimes two, but never more. It gets more difficult along the way."

"Could you please explain more? I am a little, no more than little, at a loss here." Richard stated, and then taking up the coffee mug from the table, using his left hand to pull of the piece of paper, which had stuck to the coffee mug.

"Well, think that you are weaving a mat. You have four colors that you can use, say red, blue, yellow and black. The more colors you use the more beautiful it gets, and usually harder to make too, but that wouldn't mean that if you just used one color, the mat would have to look the same way as another mat with only the same color, or that it would be easier to make than one using three or more other colors. Also it seems to us that females cast in a different way than males, though what the result is we haven't been able to figure fully out yet." Sumpner said as explaining it to a baby. Damn I hate that, Richard though, but there is nothing I can do about it now anymore. How did that man ever rise so high up?

"And may I point out that the other nations are also at the same level as us, but..." Callaghan was about to say when Richard interrupted him.

"I am sure this is very interesting, but right now I need to get some sleep. Just write a formal report, I'll read it when I get up, in an year or two. Now go." he said. The two men calmly walked out, though Callaghan had a disappointed look on his face Richard though.

The next morning Callaghan woke up and just as he was about to take a shower senator Sumpner kicked in his, or would have if it had been made out of wood, but the look on his face actually scared Callaghan a little, before he managed to pull himself together again and respond with an equally aggressive look.

"What the hell? You know that I have a small button outside the door that gives a pling sou..."

"Where the hell have you been? If you hadn't gotten drunk after your little chat with the president and gone to sleep at 3 o'clock, you would have been working the whole night, like some other people here. Have you any idea what is going on, huh?" an angry Timothy shouted in a surprised Callaghan's face, while waving a clipboard in his hand.

"Well, you got precisely 28 minutes to get to the conference room, and be sure to have read the entire report by then. Or else not even god himself is going to save your sorry little ass from the government!" Timothy continued while fixing his tie.

"What report are you talking about? What the hell is wrong?"

"This report" the senator said while slamming the clipboard into Callaghan's chest. Before Callaghan could react Timothy Sumpner had already left the room and closed the metal door behind him.

"What in the name of god is up with that man? I have never seen him like that before. Oh well, I getter bet dressed then. By what he acted like this is important… very important." and a few minutes later he was already studying the report too intensely to notice the clock ticking away.

At approx. 0100/09/25/2001, Friday, every single person with said trait "casting" went into seizures and passing out, in symptoms resembling that of a high degree fever. The symptoms went out after a few hours, leaving all off the in a weakened state (no permanent damage, weakness mostly psychological). No common symptoms are any that could be directly compared to magical abilities, and though some have told about strange dreams (which they do not wish to tell more about), these can be accounted for the normal kind of strange dreams that are happen when having extreme fever.

The incidents were reported live trough the western world and several third world countries still in working shape (as these have often failed to create any kind of organization for magicians fast, they were just walking the streets or sleeping as normal when it happened). Soviets report that none of their magicians (Note: The Soviets use the term channelers, which importance and origin of decision is unknown) were having any kind of seizures, CIA agents and informants report that this is not true, and a special meeting by the politburo is being arranged at 18.00 Moscow time (10.00 EST). The Chinese have reported some events among magicians there, though that nothing dangerous happened and that the "Superb medical personnel of the peoples republic of China" made sure that no one was injured, hurt or in any way damaged (Note: Even without medical help most of the symptoms went away after a three hours at max, leaving no external physical damage, and little other problems than the fact that they didn't feel to well)

Preliminary studies show of no cause for these seizures, and while testing having magicians cast anything at all while connected to medical equipment to check for any incoming virus or bacteria, none was found.

Course of action to taken by the USCG to be chosen at 06.30.

"6.30, isn't that pretty soon?" Callaghan though as he read the last part. "Strange though. I would have expected for the report to hold more, maybe this was just the preliminary version..." and more he didn't have time to think before the clock in his room ringed half 7, and he was out the door running towards the conference room for all he was worth.

It took a few minutes for him to reach the conference room, bumping into one magician on the way there, but otherwise the round underground-corridors were very empty.

As he stepped trough the door towards his chair in the conference room in the main USCG command office just northwest of Dallas/Texas, everyone else was already sitting in their chairs, glaring at him as if he was interrupting something very important.

"Well, good of you to show up only 5 minutes late. Now, I assume you have read the report I gave you, and we don't need to brief you. Now, our intelligence sources report that this can impossibly be a foreign power, the size, effectively and timing of it is way too wide to be possible, and even if it was possible, neither the Soviets or Chinese could possibly have advanced in magic this fast for them to be the cause of this. Now with it being 5 hours since it happened, and there being no reports of new events, I assume that this was a post-casting reaction with a definite time-interval. As to whether it's recurring and if the time between the seizures and the casting event is diminishing or increasing, remains to be seen. Now, do you have anything to add General?" Senator Sumpner said while looking at General Callaghan with his head slight bent forward. Even before he managed to end his last line he already got his reply.

"Well, with all due respect to our intelligence, I remember hearing of a very accurate report that stated that the Soviet Union wouldn't survive the 90's. And look now; those panzers are still in Berlin pointing at ours. But I don't need the CIA to tell me that they aren't the cause of this. Also, since we are exploring something new, I want those so-called 'fever dreams' examined, who knows what they might be. I want us to keep monitoring this, but with the under-manning we have compared to the commies, we need to keep on going even harden than before in training and research. Is that understood?"

Sumpner seemed very disturbed by being cut off in the middle of a line, but nodded angrily after Callaghan had finished. "Well, if you say so we will examine these dreams, but may I point out that we have little money to begin with, our organization wasn't planned for this years budget, and we must spend each penny wisely. Also, unless you have been too 'distracted' to notice, the civil-rights movement has been opposing our recruitment of these mages, saying that we force them to work for militaristic efforts and so on. And when these news break out in large scale this morning, as they already have done in the eastern states, and magic-potentials will flock to us in large scale for some kind of protection, there will be uproar in the political left, especially if you start to do large-scale examinations of the mages. We might not even get any funding next year."

After Sumpners speech, Callaghan took a sip from the coffee mug that was on the table before him, stood up and started to walk away from the room. Before exiting, he turned around and said, "Well, you care about politics and so on, I care about what works, and what does not. And it will not work unless we try to study, find out and examine every aspect of these mages, and in what way they are alike. Now, if you excuse me, I have got a job to do, as I am sure you got too." and then continued to walk out the door and into the corridor.

"Damn that man" he thought "We need to work this the right way, not the political way. Didn't they learn in Vietnam what happens when you try to fight a war when your soldiers have their hands tied to political strings? Somehow I suspect that not even the Soviets are this tied up by political threads. Threads, that's what some off the mages call their different powers that they cast. Fitting, it would seem."

When he finally reached his office he called out to his personal aide "Marie, get a hold of Barker and Gerard. Tell Barker to employ as many psychiatrics he needs to evaluate all these "fever dreams" that the casters just experienced, military psychiatrics or not, and tell Gerard to make sure Barker has the money he needs, whatever way he can get that money. And try to make it fast. Also, get hold off all the leaders in the different departments and bases of casters; I want a meeting with all of them, in person, today at 1600 hours. Thank you." he said, and then turned off the intercom. After that he continued to look trough all the reports that had been coming in to get a grasp of the situation, especially the international.

It didn't say so in the reports, but in one week up to half of the nations in the world had collapsed, and the information gathering business had all but vanished too in Africa save some states such as South Africa, which still had a working media system, but probably not for long. From the few scraps of information he got from the reports about Africa he got the impression that the continent was in a massive religious war. The "pagans" had more or less embraced the new mages. As a matter of fact several of the mages had seized control of their tribe, or not, or they might act as gray eminences. The only thing that was certain was that several groups wielding magic and AK-47's had attacked larger towns all over Africa. But those were not the only ones involved. The Christians had started witch-hunts it seemed like, and were a white cloak, some rope and a cross could be found, the Inquisition was active. No info on what this Inquisition was though, individual events or a co-coordinated organization. The Muslims had also started to hunt the mages, but information on what they did was even thinner that on the Christians. And on top of that armed conflict between Christians and Muslims was the new norm, with various rumors of mages fighting for either or both sides. Of course all the governments had lost all their power, the UN building in New York currently held most of the African leaders and highly ranking military personnel.

"Right, so Africa is in the toilet. What else is new? South America seems to be next in line on these reports," he said to himself before he started to read. Central America seemed to actually be in rather good shape. Some of the nations had even started official mage-organizations. There was a side note about that it might be possible that Cuba was working together with the SU. In the South American countryside there were rumors about mage-guerillas, and about something known as the Inquisition. All the various guerrilla factions seemed to exploit the general disarray though. In several nations were in a small-scale civil war, but for now the major cities hadn't had any fighting in them. Two major points were that apparently the president of Chile, Loganus Servaz could channel, and the fighting around the border of Surinam and French Guyana seemed to indicate that it was more than just some random fighting. There were rumors that the cities of Cottica and Moengo had the French flag flying over them. Another report claimed the EU had troops there, and some newspaper in Russia had written that the American flag had been seen flying over some cities in Surinam. There was no press allowed there, and apparently the major communication channels out of Surinam were offline.

Australia and New Zealand had started Mages Unions after the EU model, which would equal unorganized, overbureocratic and inefficient in his opinion. It needed a European to create something both unorganized and overbureocratic it would seem, but apparently the Aussies managed it too. The Islamic countries in Asia didn't have Mages unions, but quite a few death squads hunting them. There were lots of mages applying for refugee status in the US and EU. But the bureaucracy was slow on that point, and apparently the SU welcomed all mages to "the workers and channelers paradise", which was their new slogan. No reliable intel had been received from the SU and PRC on their mage, or channelers as they called them, programs, other that they were drafting each and every single channeler that could be found, and apparently had large institutions for them to do whatever they do in.

And last but not least he though with a sigh after looking at the pile of papers was Europe. Here the CIA had drowned in info. It held press-statements, videos, official numbers and so on. Apparently there were official mage-organizations. Actually each nation seemed to have at least two official organizations plus the army units. And on top of that the official EU organization that had started yesterday. And there were an indefinable number of private organizations.

"Yeah, we have got 'an indefinable number or private organizations' too." He said quietly after reading all the reports. One worrying aspect was the lack of info about the SU and PRC. The report at the meeting this morning had implied that the CIA was at least moderately informed, but these stated that they didn't know jack shit about anything.

As the day went on he went to the hospital areas of the compound. It was filled with channelers, and although talk softened as he walked by he still heard that they complained about having to be in the hospital. And they all really seemed fine, he though as he entered the door into the office of the head-doctor.

"So doc, in short, can you explain to me what happened to them, and can we let them get back to training and research?" Callaghan asked the head-doctor while taking a seat in front of his desk.

"Well, the actual reason is yet unknown, but it has quite definitely something to do with their magic ability. The sickness seemed to strike all of them at the same time, and I highly doubt that internal chemical reaction is to blame; we should have noticed at least some difference in the starting time of the sickness. You should really ask them about it. I am unsure if it was a one-of-a-time occurrence or something that happens all the time. We'll find out in the end about that though. Now, about the soldiers in the corridor, I had planned to keep them here for observation, but if you order it they can get back to training."

"Right. I'll allow them to back to studying. And you find out every gad damn thing about this event that you can. Scientific data, rumors, loony theories, anything. If a mage says he talked to god, then I want that written up. And send it free form by E-Mail. " he said, after which he walked out of the room. Soon thereafter allot of content mages walked out of the hospital areas, trying out new weaves as they walked. Callaghan was also rather content as he walked out of the hospital, far more content than he would have been if he had known what the quiet talk in the barracks was usually about. Many of the mages believed that having to ability to channel, as they called it, made them into better people those normals. And from that there was also some discontentment that they were being ruled by people who could not, or in other words, people of a lower status.


	9. Jungle War

Chapter 8  
  
Jungle War  
  
"Sir, there we have gotten this report that some witch has taken control of a few villages about 50km east of Mbandaka. Apparently some militias hoped to carve their own little nation after fleeing out of the city, and were almost all killed by the man-witch's fire." the young soldier said to the inquisitor.  
  
Looking up at the dark-brown roof of straw and mud, the inquisitor though about all that had happened in the past month. The devil had finally risen to make his move. Granting those who had sworn their souls to him magic and unholy power of unspeakable proportions. There had been reports of destruction all over the globe until the communications broke down. The satellites were still operational, but the western news were merely propaganda about how they so called "channelers" should join whatever petty organizations the nations had invented. Or actually, not so petty organizations, when thousands of witches wielding the power and malice of the devil grouped, appearing as actually forces of good, things were slightly said not good. But even if the western lands might be lost to their own lust for material goods, the decision was made that at least Africa and South-America would hold. The nations here were in turmoil, with each and every witch hoping to carve his or her own little kingdom. The cities were lost, with almost constant fighting between whatever witches hoped to control them and the various militias. But the time for resting and thinking was over, there were witches to burn.  
  
"Yes, a witch. And only one. Well, tell William Drought and his men to go there, take out the witch, and proclaim that those villages are now a part of the lands of the good lord. Tell him to draft some men also, we will as many as possible to take back any major city." he said to the soldier, after which the man saluted and left out trough the door, which was nothing more than a piece of cloth held up by 2 nails stuck in the mud walls. Yes, the cities, the inquisitor named René Mallery though as he took a sip of the red-wine from the bottle on his table. The villages and were no place for members of the holy-inquisition to work in. Sometimes he had to stay in tents, sometimes in houses where one could put a finger between the planks that made up the wall, sometimes in mud-huts like this. Atleast the cities would have good-stone buildings, and the resources to form good communications. He had heard that in some places the holy lands even controlled major cities, and ruled ports. But not in here, here he had to scavenge for whatever weapons he could, only to put them into the hands of utterly untrained and incompetent men. But god was on his side; he could not lose. He continued dreaming of proper resources, until the soldier again interrupted him.  
  
"Sir, inquisitor Vincent Bodine has arrived, and has requested that you come to speak with him," the man reported with sweat visibly dripping down his face, even some parts falling as large drops down on his dirty white sneakers.  
  
Sighing, René pulled himself up so that he was sitting upright in his chair again. "Why couldn't he just come here? And did he say why he was late? He was supposed to be here this morning." The soldier did not say anything for a second, and then started to talk with a very unsure voice that he could not say why the man wanted to talk outside, and that René should see for himself why Vincent was late.  
  
Stepping outside, it soon became apparent why Inquisitor Vincent was late. The man stood in the middle of what was used as the village meeting- grounds, covered from top to bottom in dried blood, with his companies also more or less covered in blood although it was apparent as René came closer that they had at least had the decency to try and wash their faces and hands. The wind was blowing away from René, but the fact that no-one stood for several hundred meters behind the group of Vincent spoke it's own language about the stench. Unluckily as the René stopped a few meters from Vincent the man stepped forwards to shake hands.  
  
"It is a good day to serve the lord my brother," the man started, smiling while he shook hands with René. "I am sorry we are late, but rest assured that we have not been lazy, but have instead been fulfilling the good lords work and wish. We came upon a few men worshipping the pagan moon god Allah. In order to save their souls after such a heinous crime, I had no choice than to take all their blood and take it upon me," the man continued, apparently in an excellent mood without any hint that the stench would disturb him. "Yes, I see the amazement in your eyes brother. My body might be tainted some by this infidel blood, but my faith in the lord shall keep me clean, and at the same time cleanse the blood and soul of the poor infidels. May their time in purgatory be shorted by my actions. I took it upon me to have my men take part of the cleansing. Unfortunately they tried to wash themselves, but luckily I was able to stop them and remind them of their holy duty fast enough," the man continued, then moving around to sit down on the ground near the meeting-area fireplace.  
  
"Umm, yes, good work brother," René started as there was little else he could think of. Standing silent for a minute, trying as hard as possible not to look in any way disturbed by brother Vincent, he then continued. "But the work of the lord is never done. Indeed, at this very moment, militias battle witches who battle other witches whom then step in as one militia gets the upper hand over another. This of course you know. But how can we bring the lord to the people when they would shoot at us. We must show them that the powers of god extend to all fields of life, including that which they fear most, battle. You must move into the city of Mbandaka. Worry not about conquering the entire city by yourself, for the lord goes with you, and when they see your victories in, well, whatever you choose to attack first, they will surely flock to you. So, to Mbandaka you must go, and waste no time, for there are many good Christians out there waiting for liberation," he started speaking, taking long pauses in-between the sentences to try and emulate the speech of Inquisitor Vincent. He had hoped the man would be good for increasing his influence to the south, but the man was obviously mad, and had best been sent to kill himself as soon as possible.  
  
Moving towards a table holding fruit and then taking a banana, René waited in fear of what madness the man would start to speak now. But instead of speaking, the man simply nodded, turned around, nodded towards his men, and started walking. The man quickly started running about the village, some picking up ammunition, some taking weapons bluntly out the hands of René's soldiers, some picking up whatever food they could find. It did not take long, and soon enough they were all running to catch up with Inquisitor Vincent, who was happily walking and singing a Psalm, to which his men joined in.  
  
Before going back to rest in his hut, René told the soldier who had reported on the arrival of Vincent, that the next time Vincent was coming into to meet him, he wanted to be reported atleast one hour in advance, after which reports would be made that René was currently taking confessions, and could not be disturbed for many hours. "Oh, and what was your name by the way soldier?" René quickly turned around and asked just as he was about to move towards the hut again. "Sir, my name is Jean. I have no surname sir," the man answered; seemingly allot more relaxed. As René continued towards his hut he wondered whether Vincent would survive, and why he had bothered to ask the name of some soldier he would hopefully never meet again, unless the man was running to warn him that Vincent was coming. 


	10. Work, Honor Obedience, Strength

Chapter 9

Work, Honor; Obedience, Strength

Cao Long had been working from sunrise, barely stopping to eat in between. Everyone in the city did it, even the ones who did not channel. Some did it out of belief in the communist ideal of the hard-working man; others just worked because everyone else did. Some wanted the power that magic brought, most just did it because of the glorious feeling you had when the power filled your entire existence. You were more alive; everything became as clear as if it was only two hands away. Every single brick, leaf, thread of clothing, even the single grains of sand. Cao could not deny the feeling of the power, but his main motivation was shame. He felt guilty for the death of the assembly-line foreman, for escaping from his just punishment. He wanted to work his guilt away, use the power for good, and maybe even enough to pay for his crime.

Of course that was not to be. He was one of the strongest channelers in the city. He felt he had so much to learn, but everyone had, and instead of being allowed to work on removing his guilt, he was forced to train less powerful or skilled ones. And while he did make discoveries, wonderful discoveries, it was as if everything he made could best be applied to destroy things. That seemed to be something the women did, which brought him even more shame.

Ming Li had come to see him during dinner today. He could not remeber what she had talked about, or what he had said. Had he said anything, he wondered. He couldn't remeber. All he could think about was what he thought his pupils; death, destruction, fire. He had talked about this with another one of the "masters" once. The reply had been laughter, and an answer that at worst he would sooner or later become so used to it that it would simply grow on him.

The current pupil was a pleasing one at least. While the man prepared to channel, he gave Cao a lot of time to think. The man was not a particularly strong channeler, nor did he learn fast. But his joy, his relaxed attitude of life was what made teaching him such a joy, even though the others would have said that he wasted his precious knowledge and time teaching the man such simple things.

Currently the man was trying to warm his rice-meal using the power. He was not particularly successful, warming only the outermost layer of rice to any degree. But the man seemed to break into a burst of joy for every single new centimeter of warmth that he managed to make warm, where others would have broken down and cried for him to forgive him for their weakness.

"No no, you are only focusing on warming the uppermost layer. Remember, that the cup and rice are no more a hindrance than the air around them to the power. Why don't you try and warm it from the inside and out," Cao corrected the man, speaking gently, but without the hidden arrogance of many of the other masters who had seen too many movies holding an arrogant, know-it-all old master who seemed to always know what was best, and never accepting the though of another or new way to do things.

"Yes, I had forgotten that. Besides, if I get the middle warm the heat rise up towards the uppermost rice anyway, giving me good warm rice anyway." the man replied, then continued to warm up the food from the inside, being quite allot more successful. Soon thereafter he rose up and left, happily eating his meal as he walked down the road towards the newly built barracks somewhere to the south.

Cao was not allowed to stay long in his thoughts, as the next man in line for training was already coming to see him. Walking self-assuredly and proudly, with a sense of humor that based itself on an expression of superiority so exaggerated that no one could help but to laugh at it; or at least so according to himself. Cao Long hated the man with a passion.

"Yo, what's up with you today?" the man came to Cao long with his seemingly permanent smile on his face.

"Yo...?" Cao said, turning his head up and trying to put on his best appearance of a disinterested face. He hoped the man would one day come to his senses and stop with his childish plays and jokes.

"Yoyo. Anyway, do you have any new cool ways for me to kill things today. Personally, I was thinking about a razor-thin blade of air. Since the blade would be so thin and narrow, one could cut trough hundreds of men with a single stroke." the man spoke, apparently slightly giggling at the prospect of cutting a few hundred men into two pieces. Cao could bet his left hand on that the man had never even killed an animal, much less a human, like he had. The man was nonetheless fascinated with physical violence, and Cao decided to only answer with the word cool, spoken as if it was a question. The man did not notice the question mark behind the word.

"Yes, that's what I think too, cool. But then I started thinking, that this is the age of the assault-rifle. Men don't walk in a single line anymore, and even if all the enemies were of the same height, allowing me to bypass any splinter-armor, the ground is most likely less than flat. But couldn't it be used on single enemies?" the man spoke, more or less as if he had thought out this entire conversation beforehand and the only role Cao had in it was to reply according to his wishes, making him look like a great inventor who took all things into consideration.

Sighing deeply and correcting his sitting position, Cao began: First of all, why do you bother me by recounting this conversation that you had with yourself? Secondly, we do have libraries, where all the basic weaves or rather the ideas behind them are written. Ask twenty men what their first idea for a weave was, and at least of them will describe the weave you just spoke off. Oh, and please stop with all those European words, they make my ears ache. Cao was just about ready to shout. Only minutes before he had been deep in his thoughts, and sharing the enjoyment of succeeding in something for the first time. Then the other man had come to do his best to ruin the day.

For almost half a hour the man continued his monologue with Cao. Even though he had to admit that the man had a quite wild imagination and was very able to come up with something new to say, the subjects that he brought up were nearly always idiotic and pointless. Finally a quard noticed Caos troublesome face and came to escort the man away. Cao continued to give lessons on matters that he found of no real importance or joy for the rest of the day, until finally the sun went down and he proceeded to move towards the barracks.

Of course it was that time of year when the leaves were all but gone and some places had reported snow already. While Cao found no better to do than going to sleep, that was not the case for the majority of the population of the city. Many drinking locations were open, all holding lively conversation. Even though he did not want to, Cao noticed the man from before, Mao Ho seemed to be his name, in one of the rooms holding a loud conversation. While Cao expected that the man would do that after the training hours were over, he did not expect himself to be interested in hearing what would pop out of the fools mouth next.

"Yes indeed, we have worked for another full day yet again. We will soon be able to make anything perfect. The perfect fireball, push of air, flood. And we will continue making them more perfect, and then again even more perfect. Compared to us, the westerns are nothing but incompetent savages. Indeed, we are superior to them all, but we will lose. Like our ancestors were able to after 5000 years of training from master to pupil to make the most perfect sword of them all, we will make the most perfect spells of them all. But tell me all, what will we do with our perfect swords when the Europeans land with rifles and heavy artillery. Where will our cavalry run from airplanes, our ships hide from missiles?" the man shouted out to the now rather numerous crowd. While the man shouted, "What will we do," again and again to the crowd in order to rouse them up, Cao took a comfortable seating position, wondering what he should do. How could he stop the man from killing himself without having the man consider him a conversation friend.

"Yes, what will we do, you wonder. I tell you, we will die. And whose fault is this. Yours? Mine? The goverment? None, I say, but it is our culture. Wishing to respect the past, never allowing the new. What made the corrupt emperors stay in power as long as they did? The people fearing the new! We must work together with the party, but instead of slowly building on the old, we must march rashly and bravely to the future. We will fail much, for when one tries something new, failure is unavailable. But even if we succeed in something new and brilliant one time out of ten, that one success will be worth fifty small improvements." the man continued to shout. Cao watched from afar, as he had seen that the man was obviously not going to commit suicide. The man was not as smart as he though himself to be though, being pushed away from the room by a wave of angry people. He had appeared too conservative to those that wanted a change, and too free-minded to those who preferred the safety of the old.

Once he got back to his barracks, he received a message that Ming Li had been very angry at his absence, both spiritual and physical, during the last weeks. "I want to tell her how I feel. But I can't. I must work, I have no choice. It is my duty. How can I make her understand," he spoke to himself after he had gotten his letter.

"Excuse me, did you say something? I am so sorry that I did not hear you," the clerk at the desk said. He did not get a reply, as Cao was already halfway to his own private room in the barrack.


	11. New Orders

Chapter 10

New Orders

Another day, another worry. At least things were not as crowded here nowadays. Prisoners had worked themselves to death in order to expand this facility to allow sufficient numbers to live here, and nowmany people were fighting here and there in Africa, South America and Asia. And those were only the official ones, Vladimir wasn't exactly sure what Isaia was doing, and where. The battle-experience gained from these battles was invaluable of course, but the costs had also been great. The soldiers were left to their own devices in small groups, and several had ended contact with the Union, and were later found out to have started their own little nations. Destroying those was hell for the less experienced ones, but those that survived were the strong ones, not the weaklings.

Things had also changed in the organization of the Union. Both of them. Isaia and Vladimir were the leaders of the Channelers Union. The Soviet Premier, President and Duma led the Soviet Union. Vladimir almost laughed out load when he though of this. Isaia led Vladimir, the Premier, the President and the Duma was powerless. Once he was supposed to have been the leader of the channelers union. That position was but a dream now, but he was second in command and the leader of the research and development department. His military uniform also donned a few stars now. And when Isaia was away, which he often was, fighting, Vladimir had almost the combined might of the Soviet Union at his fingertips. One day Isaia would come back only to find his head falling off at a surprising moment, a mental image which made Vladimir smile happily for several minutes as he sat in his grand leather chair, looking at some foreign channel showing a documentary of something that had to do with ancient furniture.

Sadly, the work had a bad habit of piling up at both ends of the hierarchy he mused as he looked at his desk. He had noticed it when he was a simple researcher, and how he noticed how all the questions everyone else was unable to answer were simple sent upwards until they came to him. Isaia did not bother with the small details, and Vladimir could ignore them too if he wanted. But what was the use in simply becoming a lesser version of Isaia? The telephone was blinking wildly.

"Yes, what is it now." he said with a sigh into the phone. "Sir, this is captain Romanova from the Kazan Rocket Base. We have just finished our testing of the AmatronA4 rocket. We were able to keep the rocket going for 6 seconds until our channeler lost focus." the person on the other end of the line said full of excitement in her voice. Vladimir was exited too, but soon noticed the apparent problem. Thinking for a minute or two, he then picked up the phone again and started talking. "Good. Very good indeed. Feel free to borrow a few planes from our friends in the air force, and try to have our channeler to sit in there. I want at least 10 successes in a row where it reaches as far up as possible for us to fuel it from our best airplanes. Then you can see about the possibilities of having multiple channelers fueling it. If you succeed in that, inform me and we'll see about preparing it for a manned firing" he said, with the good news rejuvenating him from his bored thoughts about his amount of paperwork. "Yes General, I hope to call you soon again." the woman said, after which Vladimir sat the phone down again.

Getting up from his chair and starting his round he thought about how superior his method was to Isaias. While the man would have gladly put some fool on top of a rocket built on a hybrid technology no-one could have imagined a few months ago, Vladimir wasn't going to kill off his best scientists and waste precious training on useless risks. Still, Isaia was not that incompetent, it seemed as if quite a few of his soldiers had returned from their far-off campaigns in the southern continents. Maybe some new weapon could be learned, who knew what they had come up with down there.

"Ah, hello. So, tell me, how have you been taking care of my Union." the deep, rusty voice could be heard. Another fine day destroyed by Isaia, the man was rather good at it. Even though startled by Isaia's appearance, Vladimir regained his posture quickly and turned around and did his best to look at Isaia like he was equal to him. "Ah... you have returned. Have you learned anything interesting, you do remember how the laws of this union require that you share all you know with the group" he said, trying his best not to sound too demanding, upsetting Isaia would only make the man stay around the base more.

Taking out his cigar, a Cuban brand Vladimir noticed, Isaia continued again in his deep rusty voice "I am sure all new advances will be shared in once they are ready to be shared. But for now, I have a different need for you. Come, let's talk in my office." After finishing, he put the cigar in his mouth again, completely at ease and radiating an aura that it was possible for anyone to be able to question his orders. Vladimir had already started walking towards Isaias office; Isaia followed after, keeping his own relaxed pace.

Isaias office was close by; it was the central command-complex after all. Vladimir let Isaia enter first, but did however sit himself down in the chair without invitation. Isaia did not seem impressed by the obvious act of independence, or at least it had seemed obvious to Vladimir himself, he though. After sitting down he continued to try and make himself at ease in the hard wooden chair, waiting for Isaia to start talking about whatever his important matter was. Isaia was calmly smoking his cigar.

Almost half an hour had gone before the cigar finished, with neither man saying a word during the time, instead they simply sat and looked at each other. Finally Isaia put down his cigar and started "I was thinking, we all know you are the researcher here. The Generals of our most beloved Union say that because of the need to give our forces proper mountain-fighting training and to stockpile supplies, it will take a few more weeks until we can begin our assault on Norway. And I will be quite busy directing our troops once that happens, as you can probably imagine. But the source of the power is still there, and I need you to visit it before we start our attack," he said. He spoke slowly, taking long pauses between his sentences. In the end he stood up and started banging at northern Norway on his wall-map. Vladimir could not remember seeing Isaia like this before, the man looked almost enthusiastic.

Isaia waited a short time and then continued, sniggering a bit "¿Preguntas? Did you want one of these cigars? Straight from our Caribbean allies. No? Anyway, I need the best researcher there, and I'll also send some of my finest soldiers to aid you. You'll stir up some trouble with the Americans there also, take out two flies with one blow so to speak. Oh, and take two of your own helpers with you too, but no more, our vehicles lack the space. Don't worry about the return trip, the island will be ours after 5 days of fighting," Isaia said, the motioned for Vladimir to leave by waving towards the door.

Vladimir walked calmly back to his room, saluting back the guards in the compound who saluted him when he walked past them. Not all channelers did salute him though, but he had grown used to it. When he arrived at his room, he slowly closed the door and had it locked. After that he sat down on the floor, his back resting against the wall. He opened the drawer beside his bead and searched around for a bit until he found what he was looking for. Prima cigarettes, the peoples brand, he though as he lighted the first one with the power.

After the first two he started speaking with the wall on the other side of the room. By this time the bottle of vodka had also been channeled from the bookcase on the other side of the room. "Corny, is he not comrade wall?" he said, laughing a bit. "Yes Vladimir, I'll send you far away, you little researcher you. Just because I see you as a threat I'll send my best killers with you, far away where no one can see. What, you think I'm going to kill you? And here I was trying to make my plans unknown to you. Oh, you don't have a fruit behind those two eyes?" he said, trying his best to imitate Isaia.

He talked to the wall until the cigarettes were gone and the bottle was empty. Then he started making calls.

The next morning he was waiting for Isaias men in one of the old gymnastics rooms. He was sitting in one end of the hall with the people he could gather in one day.

Captain Urola Romanova was a researcher like him, as were Jelena Tumanova and Maks Yudin. Mihai Jonker was actually a soldier, although he had been at base all the time and did not seem to like the eyes of the ones who returned from Isaias expeditions. Or not, but Vladimir felt he could trust the man. Galen Kurilenko was a Bulgarian, and more interested in using the force for civilian applications rather than brute military strength. Yakov Belov was one of Vladimirs assistants in his pet-project, trying to find out exactly what the power was, and where it came from. And last, but not least, was Juri Nikolaiov. Always with a J. The last one to use a Y when writing down Juris had contracted some strange disease and his penis had gone black and then finally fallen off.

Vladimir was looking at his men and women when the door on the other side of the hall opened and 5 men walked in. They walked into the middle of the room, forming a pentagram. Or pentagon. He never had the time to ask them precisely what they were trying to form.

The man in front started to speak. He got as far as "Why…" before he fell down dead, along with all the other ones. Vladimir started to speak instead, knowing they were not quite dead yet. "Yes. Surprise!" he exclaimed with a happy voice. "Oh, how? You want to know how? With pistols? Your killing tactics with the one power are all quite good I assume. But as we have noticed here while you were gone, people can still be killed by more physical means. Good bye!" he finished, then signaled to his men to do their job. Most of them started studying closely the faces of the now dead men, trying to learn them well enough to create an illusion that would make them look identical to Isaias men. Only Mihai Jonker and Juri were waiting by. Vladimir wanted everyone to see that at least some of the soldiers supported him, and Juri, he was just Juri.


	12. Glory of the Lord

Chapter 11 

Glory of the Lord

Vincent and Elita Bodine were planning future sermons and going trough applications to join the inquisition when they noticed a group of people coming towards them. "Brothers, what have you brought to us?" Vincent asked as the acolytes and laity carried a large brown bag towards him. They were one group of many that were roaming the countryside, seeking sometimes what Vincent called "heathen" and ungodly, and sometimes what René Mallery called "tangible political, economic and military goals". New acolytes were often quite astonished how often those two goals were one. When Vincent had once heard of this he had held a three-hour sermon about how the trinity were but one thing, and how they could be seen in all things good in this world.

"Lord Inquisitor, we have brought a great thing, one of the witches. She ruled a small town, where she did horrible things. Child-prostitution, human sacrifice, other things... Joseph here managed to sneak behind here, and knock her out cold," the acolyte said, gleaming of pride. When the name Joseph was brought up, one of the men holding the brown bag seemed to also gleam with pride. Vincent assumed the man was Joseph, or quite strange to take pride in the name of someone else. But to him many people seemed strange in their lack of belief. That, he though, was why he was together so much with Elita. Their common surname had made them known to each other, and he found her personality and logic very understandable.

"Vincent, does it not look like they have done an imperfect job. A good one, but imperfect. We must teach them the right way, brother," Elita said, to which Vincent continue "As always." The acolyte who had spoken tried to start begging for forgiveness, but fell silent when Elita continued again. "The which is whole I see, long legs and all. All witches must be severed from their connection to the unspoken one if they are to be saved," she said while she walked towards the bag, picking up a knife from the table while she was walking. The laities holding the bag dropped it to the ground, and she started cutting up the bag.

"Watch and learn all children of the lord, for one day you may need to do this yourself. First goes the eyes, for we cannot let the Underlord see trough them," Vincent said while Elite quickly cut up both of the unconscious witches eyes with her knife. After she did that she very quickly rolled over to the side, and the witch rose up, screaming, trying to do something with her hands to her eyes. Vincent always wondered if they screamed because they had lost contact with their lord, or because of the pain. The witch screamed around for almost half a minute before Vincent shot it with the tranquilizer gun he always had packed somewhere. After that he picked up his saw, another necessary device in fighting witches, and started walking towards the again-unconscious witch.

"After the devil has been blinded, we must make it so that the witch cannot make the unholy symbols with her hands. They must be cut off! You, laity, hold the body steady," he said, and after one of men standing around the body was pushed forward by another one, the sawing started. One of the acolytes puked in a nearby bush, but Vincent didn't mind. After he was finished, he continued speaking "After the arms are cut off, destroy the ears so that the witch may not hear the evil whispers of the devil. And finally, the legs, so she or he cannot run away from the judgment of the lord. Now, learn by doing, and finish the work," he said, then rose up. Vincent handed the saw to one of the acolytes, and Elita gave the knife to the man who was proud at the name Joseph.

Both inquisitors walked back to their table and continued talking about the next sermon. Vincent looked at the group every now and then. They were obviously having great trouble cutting off all the parts. One of the men seemed to try and move towards him, but apparently was too shy. "Yes, what is it laity?" The man stumbled around for a short while, until he finally started talking. "Yes, umm, lo.. lord inquisitor. Won't the witch like, die, you know, from, fro… from loss of blood. Yes, how do we stop the bleeding," the man asked, shaking almost visibly.

Vincent glared at the man for a minute before he answered "Yes, the plan is to make the witch die. Or do you know another way to get someone to the lord to answer for their life? But worry not, the holy flame can stop the bleeding. If you have trouble understanding, as is all too often the case I have noticed, haven't you too Elita, just heat up some metal and burn the wound shut," Vincent said, continued to look at the man for a minute, and then returned to check what Elita had though out for a speech during the interruption.

Next Sundays mass was a great feast at Mbandaka. After the initial purges of the city, mostly led by Vincent, the city had been quite happy to be ruled by the Holy Inquisition. René Mallery had proved himself an efficient manager, and after Vincent had whipped the crowd into a frenzy, everyone laughed as the kids threw stones at the impaled torsos of former witches. Another thing that added to the celebratory mood was the rumor that the city of Boende had fallen to the church without too many casualties. It had been almost 2 weeks since any sign had been seen of a living witch stalking the streets of Mbandaka.


	13. Edge of the World

Chapter 12 Edge of the World 

"This is some real good stuff. You said you made it from potatoes?" Maks Yudin asked one of the border-guards that were in the cabin. Here the group was waiting until it was the right time to leave for the trek across the border. Maks, Jelena, Mihai, Urola, Galen and Yakov were drinking the stuff the guards had brought up from somewhere. Vladimir didn't really think it would help, but had made one toast to the glorious red army nonetheless. Juri had just sat in his corner the entire evening, Vladimir noted. He had had a discussion with him about the possibility of using prisoners to advance medical studies, mostly out of trying to get some kind of an idea why the man had come to this trip. Juri seemed interested in the concept, especially war-prisoners. He wanted to test some of his work on other kinds of people, well trained and fit soldiers would be much better than the trash he had to work with now, he had said. But mostly Vladimir just sat to himself and watched at the group drinking and laughing.

He later figured out he was too nervous to be able to relax, but at the time he was just angry with himself for not taking part. Later the guide arrived, and Vladimir wondered whether Isaias real plan had meant for him to die someplace near the border. Surely his mighty nation could get a handful of people somewhere easily by plane. But off he and the rest went, and soon enough the cold and the warnings of the guide silenced them. The crossing of the border into Finland went without a hitch.

Vladimir didn't like Finland. It was cold, snowy and empty, but home in Russia the people spoke understandable languages and he always had someplace warm to go into. No one had noticed that the people coming weren't all who they were supposed to be, and the trek over the border had been uneventful. Uneventful and cold. His guide told him that they would be setting up camp in the forest soon, and tomorrow morning a van would be brought. A van, he though. He had flown in a private jet from the base, where there was vodka and caviar in abundance, and now he was freezing in some forest. He supposed he could try and use the power to warm himself, but he didn't want to risk burning himself and the power would just make him more aware of the cold. Much more aware.

He spotted a figure coming from behind a tree. As it began speaking he noticed it was his guide Michail. "Sir, shall we continue? Our equipment is just two kilometers more to the west, and after we get the tent raised we can sleep for three or four hours until the car arrives," the man said in his unbelievably dull voice. Vladimir just nodded, and started walking back towards the others. At least taking a piss had been nice.

After arriving at the resting location it took a while to get the tent up. Everyone was cold, and very unused to setting up military tents. At least the guide knew well enough how the get the fire up in the stove, so much fire in fact that the lower half of the metal smokestack became red. Some of the group went to sleep immediately, some talked about how to safely use the power to heat yourself. Vladimir really wanted to sleep, but he had heard how everyone said that army-comradeship was the best, and if wanted to counter Isaia, he needed at least some people he could trust.

The next morning the van came, and they were far enough norths to get quickly to the Norwegian border. The border was technically open and it should have been possible to simply drive across it without having to stop for any border checks, but the Americans were not blind to the massing of troops near Murmansk or to the fact that a major anti-NATO propaganda war had been initiated in the whole USSR. The engineered border-incidents hadn't helped either.

The border was unsafe, but that wouldn't be a problem. Vladimir had been skeptic to the idea of using snow-scooters to pass the border in daylight, but the guide assured him that it would merely make them look like tourists. When everyone was so nervous about a war they would be happy to see any signs of normality, and would just let them pass, if the Americans even bothered sending a helicopter.

And the guide was right. Vladimir began getting suspicious as everything worked almost too perfectly. The snow-scooters worked well, and Mihai began jumping with his by going at the small bumps in the snow at high speeds. He fell off his scooter a few times and everyone had to wait a few minutes for him to get moving again. This annoyed Vladimir to no end, but he had decided to get people he could trust, small annoyances could be ignored. Besides, he could always get rid of the man later, maybe by him falling of a cliff. He smiled at the though. Mihai noticed the smile and smiled back, as he was yet again starting his engine.

While they were passing trough Norway they stopped at a town of some kind. The guide bought a newspaper and some food for the group. Galen and Jelena were especially interested the strange types of candy that was available in this western country. Maks made fun of them for that, to which they taunted back at him for being a stupid cow. Vladimir quickly had to step in and stop it as he noticed that some of the people walking nearby were giving them strange looks. He was mostly interested in the newspaper anyway, food would fix itself, he though.

The guide was asked to read what it said. Most of the news was uninteresting, some drunken US soldiers for the exercises there had broken a window or two, a few tourists had hurt themselves, and some local company reported something uninteresting. The only things real interest was the information-box by the article of the drunken soldiers, giving some info on the current NATO-exercise in the area. The other interesting article was that apparently some conservative elements backed by the church had attempted a coup in Chile, but had been crushed by magician-forces loyal to the president. As a matter of fact the president, Loganus Cervaz, was himself a channeler. The coup had resulted in a possession of church property, and there was talk of officially declaring the nation as some kind of protestant one. 'Religion is the opium of the masses' he though as the guide told him this, and soon enough stopped thinking about it and put his mind on the more important issues.

There was enough ice that they didn't need a boat to get to Mageroya. Once they were finally there on solid land again Vladimir rose up on a nearby hill to look at the island. He could only see a portion of it, but it looked empty, cold, and hard. It was perfect. The others soon followed him up to the hill, but he just stood there and stared at the island, and though. I feel strange. I feel like this place wants me to come, but something else, something deep, doesn't like this place. I hate this place, I fear it. It's not perfect, it's terrifying. But then again, he though, I cannot turn back. This place feels like... destiny.

After he had finished looking and thinking, he turned towards the others. Galen asked if they should ask or interrogate some of the local fishermen, if any were here over the winter. Someone was bound to know if the island had lately gotten any strange new things. Vladimir replied without hesitation "No. We don't need to. I know where I have to go. And I don't believe you are meant to come with me," and as he finished, he started walking towards the inner-part of the island. He heard they were about to follow, and promptly formed a wall of air behind him. He was beginning to feel more certain, and he did not believe anyone with him today was meant to follow where he was going. He hoped they would get the hint; he had spent too much time trying to gain their loyalty to not care about killing them.

He walked for what felt like hours. It probably was hours, he figured, the island wasn't that small. He didn't look behind, only forward. And with every step he felt something deep within him, even deeper than the power, beat harder and harder. Until he finally found what he was looking far. A cave. The cave looked like a huge hole, the ceiling, and floor filled with sharp stalagmites and stalactites as far as he could see into the cave. It also looked strange in other ways. The light from the snow would make the night seem light outside, but he though he could see far, far into the cave, as though it had some kind of translucence. It also felt, alive, but when he used the power to focus he could notice nothing.

But in he went. He could feel the ceiling of the cave being almost ready to crush him, but he walked onward. He didn't grasp the power, he didn't know why really, but he told himself that using it here at the source would be dangerous. Maybe the power was unstable here, or maybe it would overwhelm him and burn him out, as he had seen it do to so many others. It was dangerous to take it here, and he was not one to take risks. "Vladimir, you are one smart g..." he said loudly to himself, when he suddenly noticed that the cave ended in some kind of void.

Soon enough he exited the cave, and noticed the massive size of the abyss. It was almost 20 meters wide and maybe even 40 meters tall. Although how tall it was could only be counted by how high it stood from the cave-exit. Around the cave exit there was a small area big enough for handful of people to stand on, but the rest of the void disappeared down into an abyss, so deep and dark that he could not even begin to figure out how deep it was.

He was looking down at the abyss, thinking of what to do next, when it suddenly spoke to him. "MAVAZOR. YOU HAVE RETURNED TO ME AGAIN, AS IS YOUR DESTINY. YOU KNOW ME, AND I KNOW YOU, WHATEVER NAMES YOUR MORTAL BODY NOW CARRIES. SERVE ME. SERVE ME!" the voice thundered in his head. He fell to his knees from the force of the voice, and tried to block it by putting his hands over his ears, but the voice would not relent. "YOU WILL SERVE ME, VLADIMIR GLENKO. THE GAME IS ON, THE PIECES ARE NOT SET. RELEASE THE STORM OF CHAOS, AND LET ALL THINGS BURN. YOU WILL SERVE ME!" the voice continued, then suddenly fell silent once again.

Soon thereafter, after Vladimir got a few ten seconds to bring himself together, he started to ask a question back. "What do I g..." he began, only to be interrupted by the voice. "YOU SEEK GAIN AND POWER, AS THE ONE WHO CAME BEFORE, AS THE ONES YET TO COME. MY POWERS ARE ENDLESS, THOSE CHOSEN BY ME BECOME AS HALF-GODS. SERVE ME, AND GAIN ETERNAL LIFE. LEAVE NOW, SERVANT, AND LET THE DARK NIGHT FALL." After it had finished Vladimir slowly started walking back up trough the cave. He hit his head on the stalactites a few times, as if the cave was closing, and after he had made it out he puked on the snow.

After several hours he found his group again. They had taken shelter in some odd cabin, and put some fire in the fireplace there. "Vladimir, what did you see? What was it?" Juri asked from his place on the bench. Vladimir ignored that question and all others for several minutes as he sat in front of the fire, warming his hands and feet by placing them towards it. Finally after he felt calm again and his hands began to feel normal he began to speak. "Yes, I didn't see it, I heard it. It may want to speak to you too, or not. If you feel like you want to kill yourself or are just to fucking greedy for power, go ahead and meet it. It's that way," he said as he pointed with his hands vaguely trough the wall into the north.

"But what was it. I mean, that there is pretty damn vague. Give us details. I at least am going there myself, that's what I study," Yakov said, leaning over the table as if to get closer to Vladimir. "You want details? First you walk trough snow until you get to the cave. The cave looks, well, strange. If it doesn't crush you like a bug, come back and I will assume it didn't. After that you come to a large void, where there is an endless pit in the middle. Then the voice starts talking, so loud you can't even hear yourself. It was, glorious. It wants you, and it will have you. Then you may walk away, but a part of you is forever stuck in that cave, held by the power of that voice. So, now you now what it is up there. Now Vladimir is going to sleep. When I wake up tomorrow we will go south to kill Americans. Everyone who is not here tomorrow I will assume went up to the lo.. voice, and were killed. So, good night, may you see the sun rising from the east some other time," he spoke, sometimes loudly, sometimes so softly he didn't think anyone could hear. He hoped they would go there. The ones who did would at least be loyal to the same things he was. He thought about the voice as he fell asleep lying on the wooden floor, feeling cold even

When he woke up in the morning he noticed the fire was out and everyone else was asleep. He looked over and noticed Maks Belov and Mihai Jonker were missing. A bit later Jelena woke up and started to apologize for not going. She said she had planned to go, but before her Maks went, and did not return. Then Mihai went, and he didn't return either. So I stayed here, and waited, and prayed. But they didn't come back. So I, well, I just didn't go," she said, sobbing a bit as she spoke "I meant to go, but I didn't, and I, I hope you can forgive me," she said, her face hidden behind here eyes as Vladimir noticed small tears dropping down on her shirt. "Hmm, you may yet find the chance to redeem yourself. We will be going south again today, and in three days time, the war will begin. Yes, you will find many chances to prove yourself," Vladimir said, then walked outside. It was a beautiful day. He had had bad dreams during the night, but now he could not stop feeling, complete. Even the cold air chilling his skin and the flakes of snow falling on his face, of which the power allowed him to feel every single one, only improved his mood. He knew he had found the thing that he was looking for.

After some 6 hours everyone was awake and they begun the trek southwards. There wasn't much talk as they walked, everyone just though of what they had been trough tomorrow. The fact that they were going to be in the middle of a war in a few days, was simply ignored as irrelevant.

OT : I would like to thank everyone who has read this far. I will not forget this fanfic, and will update it (the next update will certainly come within a month). But I ask for you to write at least some kind of note that you are reading this fanfic in the reviews, and if you have any criticism for me on how to improve this, please give it.


	14. First Winds

Chapter 14

First Winds 

The mood around the conference table was dark. Everyone had just spent an hour more or less blaming each other while reports were brought in. The Secretary of the US Army, Bill Dukeson and the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Louis Thatcher were sitting in one corner, blaming him the CIA. The CIA again, represented by the chairman of central intelligence, Porter Ross, blamed the army for ignoring reports of Soviet Troop movements. The White-House Chief of Staff, Elaine Waterfield, had resigned after unsuccessful attempts at organizing the discussion, and just sat silently on her chair. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, sat mostly on his chair reading incoming documents, to rise occasionally to blame the Army, Navy, Air force, Marine-Corps, the CIA and the boy scouts about as much, or so it felt for Dave Callaghan who as leader of the casters guild was ordered to take part of the discussion.

The Secretaries of State and Commerce, Newton Walker and Hasad Kubilay were arguing amongst themselves mostly, but Dave was too depressed to listen. He had been woken up at one o'clock in the night, told the Soviets were attacking Norway, of all places. Not that his guild had any men there, but it was counted as a major government organization, and World War 3 was a big deal. But he had been awake and working now for 12 hours and was just about to brief the president, only he didn't have the slightest clue about what to say, and apparently the other ones didn't either. He heard a door opened and noticed the president walking in, and so did everyone else as the sound in the room dropped immediately.

The president walked fast and with an angry look on his face. "Ok, I held a speech this morning where I told the public everything I know, which is nothing. Now I have, reluctantly, given you half a damn day to get me answers, and I want to hear them now. So?" he said, leaning over the chair at the end of the slightly oval-shaped table. As he begun sitting down after his speech everyone in the room started talking at once, Dave among them. The president quickly threw up his hands motioning everyone to stop, and stated to everyone in the room "I don't care who you want to blame, and your excuses will be for later. Right now you tell me what the hell you know, and all of it. You start." After at everyone's eyes as he spoke, he pointed at General Louis at the end.

The general fumbled a bit with some false starts until he finally started talking normally. "Yes, to be blunt, the Russians are attacking us in Norway with a shitload of everything. We had the 6th and 10th Infantry along with the 82nd Airborne division there. Missile-strikes, commando operations and electronic interference has destroyed the command structure, so we are at worst forced to use local telephone-lines to keep in contact with our troops. But over there we have no one in command. The biggest unit still fighting is the 2nd brigade in the 6th Infantry, and we have maybe a dozen battalions still active. But they are apparently using casters to break up our lines, and it's working. There is no way we can get the army organized and able to fight in time, so the current general plan is to withdraw south into Finland and Sweden, if possible further into Norway. That way we can save our men, and hopefully later in the war supply and organize them. If you desperately want to give the people good news, you can tell them that the Russians are still lying still in central Europe. We have of course begun to prepare for war there too,"

"Are you telling me that our army has begun speaking French! 'We surrender', is that the new motto of America? You keep up the fight; the Russians think America is weak, and that we will run if they hit us easily. Well, they are wrong. Anyway, I forgot. You next Porter," the president said, banking hard on the table several times as he spoke.

"Yes, as the general here said, the Russians are doing nothing in the rest of Europe, well, except taking up defensive positions. They are calling up reserves from Russia and placing them far away from the border. The pacific regions are peaceful too. To let everyone know, we did notice their troop-concentration in the north near Norway, but we didn't think they'd be stupid enough to attack, especially as the rest was quite calm. Why they attacked, I don't know. Their claims of us attacking are pure lies, and there's nothing really important north of the Arctic Circle, or at least nothing important enough to start the next world-war over."

"Nothing important up there! Are you fucking crazy, or are you saying they are? Are you telling me a million damn Russians just really, really want to swim at the beaches of northern Norway? We have goddamn anti-peace protestors outside and you are telling me you don't even know why we are being attacked?"

"Uh, yes sir, that is the case. But if I can..."

"No, you can't. So, shut up. I am having a very bad day and I want good answers and solutions. Is there anyone in this room that can give them to me?"

"Mr. President, if you could just relax now. The press conference is not for another hour," Elaine said, trying to relax the tension in the room before it exploded, or at least so it seemed to Dave. She and the president spoke something to each other, but he wasn't able to hear exactly what. Whatever it was it seemed to soothe the president somewhat. He decided to make his move.

"Sir, if I may. Apparently the Russians have been using battalion or brigade-sized caster units, and it is working. As you know my organization is mostly a civilian one, we have, perhaps unwisely, earlier decided to not use the source in combat until our people are trained enough and know if it's safe to use or not. Although it isn't official, I think I should tell you now that we have trained some troops to act as special forces. If you want, I think we can form at least 5 battalions. If you whip up the war card and the people are ready for war, forming a division should be possible even. But I need time. Half a year, maybe even a full year. And that's a crash program; most of our grunts train longer than that."

After sitting silent for a few seconds the president rose up in his chair, slapped his hands together and shouted "Aaaand, we have a winner!" Everyone just sat silently around the table until the president continued. "I don't suppose you can narrow that 6 months to 6 days? No, wait, never mind, I am the president after all. We are knee-deep in shit here. I want you to get me one battle-ready battalion of casters ready to fly to Europe within a week. Anyway, thank you General Callaghan. Now, the rest of you offer me solutions."

The meeting went on for half an hour. For the rest of the meeting Dave just sat silently, praying for the meeting to end so that he could run and start organizing a battalion. He noticed that after the others had offered something, they too started to look at their watches and squirm around uncomfortably. Finally the president rose up, and as the door out of the room closed behind him, Dave and everyone else in the room rose up and started running. He managed to get first out of the room so he wasn't fully sure where everyone else was going, but he even called his chauffer to start the engine.

Once the car was going, and he sitting in the back seat he took a few minutes to relax before starting to call. After thinking about it for a minute, he decided to contact Sen. Sumpner first. The man was the co-leader of the casters guild after all, and now the man could show off his worth.

He had to talk to some secretary first before he could get a hold on the man, but it went better than usually. "Hi there. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we don't have any ban on using our casters for military uses anymore... uhuh, well, I though it was good news. The bad news is that we need to have a battalion of casters ready to fight a war in 7 days... A battalion? It's around 800 men. Anyway, could you take care of the running of the guild for now? I need to find 800 men who are willing to die. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions."

Later on as they drove to the airport he called most of the senior staff and asked that they report than plan to form an instant battalion immediately after the presidents speech. The guild had quite a few casters who had been in the army; the biggest problem was that almost no one of them had trained in using the source for fighting. It was going to be bloody.

The following days went quickly. At first getting volunteers was easy, but once a written order came from the Pentagon to begin readying at least 4 extra battalions to be ready in 6 days, the willingness to enter the war in a week dropped like a rock. At least choosing the officers was easy as there weren't enough volunteers to choose from, Dave though as he later on read trough the possible candidates. He worked as hard as he could, talking to the people directly to get them to join, but by day three only a little under 500 of real worth had volunteered and he had only gotten 7 hours of sleep.

Finally at three in the morning as he looked at the blackboard where he was writing up the battalion organization he had an epiphany. He started erasing and writing on the blackboard as if there was no tomorrow, and suddenly where there had been three companies there were six. He celebrated by drinking some of his finest cognac. After a few glasses had gone down his throat a few extra support platoons magically and the title 'Final Plan' appeared on the blackboard. He was sitting on his chair and admiring his work when he finally fell asleep.

He was still asleep when the next morning Sen. Sumpner came over to check up on the progress. The senator tried to kick Dave's chair a bit, but once he noticed that Dave was not going to wake up, he went back out and started talking to the aide. After some discussion he ordered the aide to copy down what was on the board, then send it to the commanding officer of the new battalion so that he could begin getting the men into their groups.

Later in the day, almost past noon, Dave finally woke up. He used the small toilet joined to his room to shave and brush his teeth. After he checked himself out in the mirror and found his appearance satisfactory he walked out into the corridor, determined to appear as if he was in full strength and had nothing to be ashamed of. The post should have come by now too, and the organization was still to be fixed, last night was just crazy.

"Captain, any important news? If not, I still need time to work on the battalion plan so don't have anyone bother me," he said while checking trough his in-box on the captain's table. It appeared to be mostly unimportant stuff, newspapers, supply reports.

"Sir. Senator Sumpner was here earlier, around eight. He went in and saw you sleeping, and considering your hard work these past days, he decided to let you rest and OK'd the plan. We sent it forward to colonel Writer and his staff. You had written out some majors and captains as company-commanders, so we had it sent forward to them too. Oh, and they brought this disc an hour ago. It should have the latest front-report on it. A damn hassle word is that some hacker got into our systems today so the order is to avoid using them to deliver critical information. You might want to disconnect your computer when you read th... Sir, are you ok?"

"... Whadda. No. Yes! Of course! Wha... Did you say 4 hours ago? Sumpner? ... Yes, right, good work. Sorry Beatrice, I was just surprised. Anyway, I'll go to my room and read these news now. Have colonel Writer call me in an hour or so, I just want to check out that everything is going well," he said, then grabbed the whole lot of papers in the in box, took the disc with his left hand, and walked back into his room. He dropped some papers as he tried to open the door with his left hand. He placed the rest of the papers on one of the chairs in the room, and then picked up the rest from the floor outside his room and threw them on the chair as well. Once he had the disk placed safely on his desk he looked at the blackboard, and said to himself 'Whoops'.

He looked around the room for a few minutes and then tried to remove the stress with a good solid game of computer solitaire. He failed. Damn that Sumpner, now he will either make me look like a fool or we will have a very shittily organized military. But it's probably better for me to remain in power rather than to lose prestige by admitting this fuckup. God only knows what good old Timothy would do to this guild. Fucking shit, he though as he threw a fistful of pens at the blackboard.

He finally decided to check out what was on the disk, More bad news no doubt, he though. After decoding the files he came to the conclusion that he was right. The army-structure had completely collapsed now; the biggest units left were company-sized. The Russians had been said to be around 50 km from the Swedish border, although in the time it took for him to get this report the Russians had probably already reached it. In the sea the situation was more equal. The USS Seawolf, Bill Clinton and Hawaii reported sinking enemy submarines. As a matter of fact the Hawaii had sunk two. On the other hand the contact had been lost with the USS Hyman G. Rickover.

It took less than thirty minutes to read trough all the relevant information on the disc. While waiting for the colonel to call he checked trough the rest of the mail. The newspapers appeared to only hold information about the war, and it seemed as if they knew even less about the horror of the situation than the president. 'Fight them until you die, hurrah' he thought to himself as he saw the picture of a few hundred American prisoners. Apparently the picture had been copied from Soviet newspapers.

The colonel called at about one-thirty. The colonel described the process and commented something about a brilliant and original plan. Dave just said "Right", "Ok" and "Mmm" back. Finally he asked if they had any problems getting supplies such as winter-clothing, weapons, ammunition and food. Feeling satisfied with the yes answer from the colonel, he said goodbye and hung up. There was still the matter of getting flights organized, first to Norway, then up north to the battle-zone from there.

Precisely one week after he got into his car outside the White House there was a press conference at the Wheeler-Sack airfield, with a select few reporters having the ability to interview the soldiers, take photos and write good news about the war. The select few were five to be precise, Dave noticed, although when the constantly attacked him with questions it felt as if they were five hundred. He tried to be as vague as possible, although he did have a few agents standing near him to make sure he didn't say anything secret. There were as many agents as there were soldiers to be precise, so all the reporters seemed to want to attack him or the colonel to get information straight from the top. The president had promised to come a few days before, but as information leaked out that he was to blame for the US-soldiers becoming prisoners, he had more or less locked himself into the White-House now.

The day went well in the end though, and before dusk the battalion was already on their way to Germany, from where they would be then flown up to Oslo. Helicopters would then bring them most of the way to the front, and then it would begin.


	15. Summons

Chapter 15 Summons 

Cao had been summoned to a meeting with some officials. No one had told him why the meeting was held, only when it was and where he was supposed to go. He was scared, he had heard stories of some people going to meetings and then never coming back, but he had done his best not to believe them. So he had gone without even trying to find out what the meeting was about. When he finally came there he was brought to a medium-sized room with gray concrete walls. The room had a metal table and four metal chairs, with three on one side of the table and the last one on the other side. Three men were sitting on the table as he walked into the room, checking some papers. They told him to sit down.

"So, citizen Cao Long. Do you know why we have called for you?" the man said. Cao hadn't seen the man before, but the man on the right side of the table was named Bi Lok. He was the leader of some accounting or administration department, although Cao wasn't completely sure. He had never bothered anyone here and the only responsibilities he had taken were those that everyone had asked him to take. Had they finally found out about his crime back home? _That must be it._

"No sir, I do not." Short, simple answers were best.

"Well, Long. May I call you by your first name?" the man said, and then waited until Cao nodded slightly. "Good. As you may know we have been watching the progress of the most promising magicians. Many, many people show promise, but you, you don't just show promise, you show brilliance. As they say, 'either hire him or kill him'. Although some think I am wrong in my opinion of you, we all think you are good enough, yes, definitely good enough to merit personal attention."

"Sir, I am just a humble servan..." Cao was saying until the man in cut him off mid-sentence.

"Humble? Yes, that is what I really wanted to talk to you about. I have been told you sit in the back when others show whatever petty toys or tricks they have done. You never ask any question, yet you can almost always do exactly what they did after only being showed it once or twice. And yes, it is very good to be humble in front of the state and the people, very good indeed. But today, this time need you to step forward, where you will be more useful to everyone," the man said, then took a sip of water from his glass before continuing. "They talk about you in the corners, you know? When you walk the streets, people stand there silent and just look at you. Or so I have been told?" the man said, then quickly glanced at Bi before continuing. "Do you think I am right Long?" he asked.

Cao looked over at the two other men, still sitting there silently, before he answered. "Sir, I am no great man. I teach yes, and many wish to the taught by me, but I have no desire for power. And... and, I can not lie to you. Before I came here I committed a most terrible crime, I..." he said, and was cut off again.

"Oh, the factory manager," the man said, then took a pause to look on Cao. "You look surprised? Of course we knew about him, we found out about it easily when we began checking up on you. Don't worry about him, that thing is settled now. The countryside, the factory, the manager; all that is your past." the man said, and the others nodded. "What we want to do here today is talk about your future. Have you ever sat silently and listened? Can you hear it? The magicians desire a leader, one of their own. And if you listen closely, you can hear your name. We here hear it. You wish to serve. That is well, that is indeed very well. Your kind seems to have chosen you to be a leader of some kind, and after this little talk between us, I think we can agree. You do want to serve the party, do you?" The man even stood up and began walking as he talked, making all kinds of moves and gestures with his hands.

"But I don't know anything about leading. I am a humble man. How could anyone look up to me when I prefer to sit down?" Cao asked. He felt nervous; he didn't want this responsibility. Once he had only been responsible for himself, and he had killed a man and severed relations with his family. If he had done that to himself, how could be responsible for everyone?

"I asked if you want to serve the party."

"But I have never led anyone. There must be someone older, someone who knows about these things?" Cao said.

"You still haven't answered my question, Long."

"Yes, I want to serve, but..."

"Brilliant. He accepts," the man said to the others.

"Your training will begin tomorrow, at 10 in the morning, here." Bi Lok said.

"Training?" Cao asked.

"Yes, of course. You may be the shining dragon of glory for all the others here, but as you said, you don't know how to lead. We will teach you the sciences of leading and teaching. Study hard." Bi said.

"I... I will, yes sir."

"Any other questions, Long?" the man in the middle asked.

"What... What is your name, sir?" Cao asked.

"Dee Kong. Anything else?" Dee said.

"No sir. Thank you for this, sir." Cao said.

"Then go, return tomorrow. At 10." Dee said.

"Yes, I remember, sir." Cao said, then began to walk out of the room, his head still facing the three men. He hit the door with his back, but did his best to look composed as he opened it, his face still towards them, and then walked out. Just as he closed the door, he though he could see the men inside the room shaking hands, but he wasn't sure, and he didn't care to open the door again to find out. He also felt in his heart that there was something else that had changed inside of him, but he thought that it might just be the excitement of the situation.

The trek back to his rooms was eventful. He was so much in thought that a car almost hit that him. The driver managed to move past him at the last instant and stop before hitting anything, and then he came out to shout at Cao. Cao didn't even really notice what had happened and just waved back at the driver. Others greeted him as he walked past him. He thought about the greeters. _Does everyone really respect me, and have I just missed it? _He hadn't noticed it before, but he was certain he hadn't met many of the people greeting him on the street. Was everyone just friendly here or was it something else. No one had been so friendly towards him back home, but everyone knew each other there from childhood. His mother had always told him to be friendly and courteous to strangers. _Did they have the same kind of a mother as I?_

He was just wondering when suddenly two men came out screaming from some building. "Look! A miracle! Come, see! Something impossible has happened."

Cao was curious and started talking to one of the men "What has happened? And are you feeling well?"

"What has happened? I'll tell you. Me and my friend here, Shing, were playing heads or tails. I took tails, he heads. But the thing is, it landed on its side. Shing ran and took a photo, and we showed it to everyone else in here. But then... but then, then we threw it again, we had bet 20 yuan after all. And it landed on its side again. It's impossible! Impossible!" he said, then started motioning for everyone to come in and look at the coin. Lots of people came in to look and admire the coin. Some called it lucky, others unlucky. A few seemed to have cameras of some kind with them. Cao decided that he had better things to concern himself with right now, and continued on.

After walking for a while, he decided not to go back to his apartment, but to go and talk with Ming instead. She would be happy to find out the thing with his crime was solved. He wondered how exactly they had fixed the issue, he had never heard of any law allowing murder. They probably knew best though.

"How are you doing?" he asked her once he got all the way to her apartment. She had been inside, drinking tea. Before answering to his question she called him inside and poured up a cup of tea for him too. It was indeed becoming cold outside. Usually he used magic to keep himself warm, but he had been so deep in his thoughts that he had forgotten it. Only now did he notice how cold he really was.

"Fine, I'm doing fine. But what are you doing here? Didn't the meeting go well?" she asked as she handed him the cup of tea. It was green tea. Cao hated green tea, but drank it out of politeness. It didn't taste any better even now that he was cold.

"They asked me to, well, nothing special," he said.

"What? Tell me."

"Well, they wanted me to become some kind of a leader. They didn't tell me any specifics, but I assume they want me to work as some kind of teacher here. Maybe a principal of the other teachers, they talked much about learning, teaching and leadership. They didn't say it out loud, but I think that's what they asked me to do. My training starts tomorrow," he said. He hoped that by talking with her he might better be able to decide what he wanted to do.

"What, and you didn't even think of coming to ask my opinion about it!" Ming said.

"?"

"Don't look at me like that. I know very well that you would have had the night to think on it if you asked. And now you make a decision like that without consulting me! Men!" Ming said.

Cao thought Ming reminded him of his mother. He wanted to defend himself by saying there hadn't really been any choice on his part, but decided not to. The worst thing one could do to a woman was try to talk sense. He just stood there silently, thinking what neutral thing he could say. Finally he got it "It was a very good offer, and I could not stop my mouth. I am sorry, I will come to you first the next time"

"Pah. When do you start?" Ming asked, still looking angry.

"Tomorrow at 10."

"Be there at 9."

"Well, why?" Cao asked, then quickly cursed his mouth again.

"WHY! Because they expect you, I mean, how can you even ask that. They give you this position, and suddenly you are so high and mighty that the last signs of humility in you have vanished. At 9! They expect it of you."

"Yes. I will do my best to please them," Cao said. How could one understand women?

Cao though about the meeting while he finished his tea. It did sound good, and it was prestigious to be chosen for such an assignment, but he just wanted to know why it had been him. He also though about Ming's advice, and came to the conclusion that it would be good to impress them at once by coming in early.

When the cup was empty, Ming took it away. She didn't ask if he wanted another one, and Cao had learnt that it was the signal for him to leave so she could sleep. He thanked her for her advice, and she smiled and gave him a kiss on his left chin. Cao thanked himself for being so lucky, he wondered if he had done something in an earlier life to merit it. The trip back was quite short, he had found a new place to live, closer to Ming. Once he was trained they would probably place him in some fancy building, possibly one of the new ones that were being built. He hoped that they would let Ming come with him.

He slept badly that night, still wondering about the job. He felt that he didn't just doubt himself and his ability to lead, there was something else too that he couldn't quite put his finger on. But at least he didn't have any nightmares that night when he finally fell asleep, and when he woke up he saw that as a good sign.

When he was outside the building he checked his watch. It showed 8.59. He asked one of the reception-clerks what he was supposed to do, but she just pointed on one of the chairs. Cao looked at what papers they had. He chose the newspaper from yesterday and began to scan for articles he hadn't read yesterday. There was much of talk about the capitalists insulting the Soviets. The paper asked all Chinese to work harder to show support for the Soviets in their crisis. Long didn't know what harder work had to do with showing support, but he was angry at the capitalist and fascists for once again plotting to kill all communists and plunge the world into another war.

As the hour went by, more men and women came and sat beside him. He recognized several of them, and talked to them. It turned out they were also here for leadership education. Cao was happy that he wouldn't have to be alone in this job, but he hadn't expected to. There were very many channelers after all.


	16. War

Chapter 16: War 

"Ok son, tell me everything that happened," Dave Callaghan said to the channeler. One week after the war had started, he had managed to get one battalion sent to the field. They had actually seemed happy when they began the great trek northwards. The soviet army made travel by roads risky as hell, his men were not trained to jump from planes, with the mountains and all, so they had to walk, or rather ski. That had been two weeks ago. On Christmas eve.

American military electronics were the best in the world, Dave had always though. With the help of that, and local guides who knew everything about the terrain, his men had survived a week behind enemy lines before the Soviets could track them. He was certain they had slowed the Soviet advance by at least a day, probably two, possibly even three. But eventually the Soviets did find his men. First men from one of the platoons were found and captured. The next day the company commander reported that his platoons were in heavy combat. He did not hear from that company after that day. Two days later the command-structure in his battalion broke down, and now the first one of his men came back.

The man had not seemed injured, but he had been cold and hungry. Dave had left for the field hospital they kept him in the minute he heard about it.

"Sir, are you General Callaghan? I have kind of a bad memory with faces," the soldier said.

"Yes, but don't worry about that. I just want to know what happened out there."

"Sir, sorry sir. I just have this thing. Anyway, we did what you told us to do, strike the Soviet convoys, outposts, moving units, guerilla style. I think we were in like twenty fights or so, we learnt lots of new things all the time. In the beginning we just threw simple fire, or pushed the cars over with air if we were strong enough. I don't know how many we killed though, most were still in their cars when we struck, and we didn't stay to count 'em. Lieutenant Badger said we didn't have to collect dog tags to be able to brag once we got home. I got this here from one lone guy though." the soldier said as he pulled out a medal from his pocket. "He charged us like a fanatic, screaming and shooting like hell all the time. I only thought they did that in the movies."

Callaghan quickly looked at the medal. "That's a medal for Bravery in Fire Fighting. You keep that." The soldier put the medal back in his pocket. "Lt. Badger. That would mean you were from 3rd company, right?"

"Sir, yes sir. Private Yuki at your service. Sorry I didn't tell who I is... was at once," Yuki said.

"Ok. And you can stop calling me sir after the first sentence," Dave said.

"Sorry."

"So, what happened once you began to lose contact? We here also lost contact with the whole unit. At first we lost 2nd company on New Years day. Then over the next two days we lost contact with the rest of you, and now you are the first one to come here."

"What, but all the rest? I just got separated during an attack."

"Just tell me what happened. I am sure the others will come back too, you were just the first. A large unit moves slower than a single man."

"Yes. It was Jan. 2, Saturday I think. My watch doesn't show days, just dates. I was in a bush, shitting. It was cold. Suddenly I saw the camp explode. Then I took hold of the power, you know you can hear and see much better in it?" Yuki said. Callaghan nodded, and then Yuki continued, "I could hear my friends screaming, and the Russians charging forward, shouting their urra. I threw some fire to where I saw the Russians coming from. They used normals to charge, with magicians somewhere behind making shields like on the soldiers. There were others too, doing their magic at us, fireballs, breaking trees down on us, air-punches, breaking earth, all of it. I did my best to help out, but they didn't even notice me, I think. So I kind of decided to just pull back to where the closest other platoon was supposed to be. But there were Russians there too, so I stopped using the magic so they wouldn't notice me. I though about the direction the Russians had attacked from, and then began to walk the other way. I didn't see anyone else, so I went to this village to ask. They said they hadn't seen anyone, but they gave me food."

"Did you hear more noise when you went back? How far was it to that village?" Callaghan asked.

"No, it was pretty quiet, some noise here and there, but nowhere real close to me. About that village, it was like 3 hours. I wish I could tell you where it was, but we had moved last night, and I let the lt. take care of the mapping for me. I lived in Sacramento all my life before this, I don't know much about nature or snow."

"Well, that's fine. I'm sure you will see your battalion again. I think the others might just have decided to hide for a longer while or take a long route to get back. Once you feel better, have them send you to Oslo. Air-cover is good there, and we'll reform you, the battalion, there, ok?"

"Yes sir. Oslo sounds good."

Dave left the building to let the soldier rest, and moved to his car. He would of course send others to find out every single detail about what had happened, but for now he was pleased with the summary. _Is it possible that the Soviets can block our radios with magic?_ Long battle, short battle or massacre, there should have come some word from some platoon about what was happening. Things did not look too good.

"Did it go well, sir?" his driver asked him once they begun driving back.

"Splendidly. This war will be over by summer," Dave answered back. He was in a sour mood, the only one of his men to get back was just a scared private who had been taking a dump and then got scared and ran away. What would happen once the other magicians who had been civilians, started to begun to be sent into combat. He had wanted to use magician officers and noncoms, but there weren't enough, and those civilians needed experienced leadership if they were to be of any use.

"But, that sounds good. Can I write or call about it home, they are worried there?" the driver answered.

"Just don't tell them I haven't decided what summer or which side will win yet."

"But, umm, yes, sir," the driver said.

"But what?"

"Nevermind."

"Well then, I am not here for your buts, so drive. Bodo, fast."

The rest of the drive was uneventful. The car was a civilian Volkswagen, a blue one. He had asked how blue would help him evade enemy attacks, and they had said to him that because the Soviets couldn't get complete air-superiority, they would only target confirmed military targets. Something a blue Volkswagen wasn't. Dave had decided that if they were wrong, he could always blame them in heaven.

Once he arrived he had a message waiting for him. It came directly from the president, who demanded to know what had happened. _Is this the crucifixion?_ Losing a battalion of mages was shit. But what had they expected when they gave him a week to finish it.

He though about what he was going to say, then sent a simple message. 'Unit broken in battle vs. Soviet magicians, reformation of unit started in Oslo. Heavy casualties expected. Suggestion: Call unit back to train further magicians. If not sent back, possibility to use smaller pairs for harassing action once unit reformed.' It was short, sweet, and didn't tell anything much. Who knew, maybe even half would return. If nothing else, they would be at least be experienced then.

He spent the next week trying to keep in touch with the movements and training back home. He wanted to stay in Norway though, to be able to talk to his men when they got back. If they did.

The next week was horrible. Massive forces of enemy airplanes attacked Bodo on Wednesday. There were four US-carriers getting ready to move into the fight, and the Soviets wanted to use all their airpower now while they still could. That didn't bother him, he was safe in the field outside the city, but what worried him was that it looked like the Soviets had begun to use magicians in their planes. He was sent the next day to the city to look at the damage.

The Soviets had used three planes, or that was what had reached the city. The Norwegians showed him three straight lines of damage, from what Dave knew, it looked like they had used three of the different powers. The first one he assumed used the power he called Earth. It had broken asphalt and a few buildings. The buildings still stood, they just had a collapsed part in their middle. The second one they showed him appeared to have used Air. It hadn't damaged the asphalt, but had dealt powerful blows to the buildings it hit, and a wooden residential building had collapsed. The last one was of Water. It wasn't impressive; he tried to make some jokes about it to improve morale among the soldiers and citizens that were with him. He assumed there might have been a fourth plane meant to use fire, but it had probably been shot down. The plane the soldiers said had used Earth had been shot down and crashed in the ocean.

As the week went by, three more came back, two from the same company as Pvt. Yuki, and another one from the company that he lost contact with first.

The men from 3rd company told him pretty much the same thing Yuki had, but the last one, Lt. Olsen, was from the company Dave had lost first. He said that his platoon had been about three kilometers from the company command-position when he began to hear the sounds of combat. He tried to use his radio to talk to them, but failed. He sent two of his soldiers forward to scout and report back while he began to move towards the fight.

He had marched about a kilometer with the platoon, and he could still hear the fight going on, as one of his men came back. The man shouted that the Soviets were after him. Then the lieutenant told Dave a long story about how he did his best, but kept falling back because he could feel that the Soviets might be trying to encircle him. He fought not only normals, but mages as well. He tried to use the radio to contact others, but it still didn't work. After he stopped hearing anything from where the company HQ had been, he decided that they had retreated, and he should as well. By nightfall he was down to ten men, but he thought that one or two might have just hid.

During the night he finally managed to escape the Soviets, but he was sure that by morning they would find them again. He ordered his men to form pairs and escape towards Sweden, trough where they should move south until they could move back into NATO territory.

His pair had been Pvt. Locke, but shrapnel had hit him in some random artillery-barrage. Olsen said he though it had been American artillery.

The next week many more of his men came back, there were now 60. And he heard that there was one almost full-strength company hiding in Sweden. He heard about that from their media, but he hoped they would make it back in any case. The Soviets were lambasting NATO for using neutral nations to wage war from, and threatened to hunt any US units that crossed the border, and that they might use Swedish and Finnish airspace. Dave though about it, and then came to the conclusion that he didn't care. He needed to get back to America, he had been away for too long, and now that his men were beginning to come back, he felt that he was needed more back home, preparing for their return. The president had OK'd his request to use them for training of new companies. After the initial batch had been sent away within a week, he had promised the rest that they would have 6-9 months of training before going into combat. Finding volunteers wasn't the hard part, it was finding good ones.


End file.
